Endeavour pours first gold at Lafigue mine

(Sharecast News) - Endeavour Mining announced the first gold pour at its Lafigué mine in Côte d'Ivoire on Tuesday, achieved on budget and ahead of schedule. The FTSE 250 company said the milestone was reached 21 months after construction began, and marked the fifth project in West Africa it had delivered within the last decade.

It said the Lafigué mine was expected to begin commercial production and ramp up to its nameplate plant capacity of four million tonnes per annum in the third quarter of 2024.

Since the fourth quarter of 2023, over 17.8 million tonnes of material had been moved, including over 1.8 million tonnes of ore with a grade of 1.37 grams per tonne, amounting to more than 80,000 ounces of gold mined and stockpiled in preparation for the processing plant's ramp-up.

For the 2024 financial year, Lafigué was projected to produce between 90,000 and 110,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) ranging from $900 to $975 per ounce.

Production was expected to increase to approximately 200,000 ounces in 2025.

"We are proud to have achieved our first gold pour at Lafigué, which, alongside the first gold pour at the Sabodala-Massawa BIOX® expansion that we achieved in April, marks the successful completion of the recent phase of investment and growth that we started in the second quarter of 2022," said chief executive officer Ian Cockerill.

"We now begin a new phase of increased free cash flow generation, de-levering and enhanced shareholder returns."

Cockerill said the company believed such level of value creation was repeatable in West Africa, and we had already identified the Assafou deposit on the Tanda-Iguela property in Côte d'Ivoire, where it had delineated a top tier resource and another potential cornerstone asset, which would underpin its next phase of organic growth in a few years time.

"With the current phase of organic growth completed, we are now focused on quickly ramping up our recent development projects to maximise their returns and support our near-term capital allocation priorities of de-levering our balance sheet and enhancing our shareholder returns."

At 0820 BST, shares in Endeavour Mining were down 0.35% at 1,716p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.