After successfully setting up Tietto Minerals as a $750 million takeover target for China’s Zhaojin Capital, experienced gold operator Matt Wilcox has been lured to the board of Toubani Resources (ASX: TRE).
Wilcox will bring a wealth of African mining experience to the aspiring gold developer and its flagship Kobada gold project in Mali after he managed the full development of Tietto’s Abujar project in Côte d’Ivoire and its gold operations. Under his leadership, Tietto only recently notched up another quarterly production record at Abujar, delivering an increase in ounces and a huge leap in quarterly sales revenue due to the record gold price.
He previously oversaw the team that constructed and commissioned the Abujar gold plant on time and below budget and also led the construction of West African Resources’ Sanbrado gold mine in 2020.
Wilcox also worked for Nord Gold for eight years and led the construction of the 4 million tonnes per annum Bissa gold project and the 8 million tonnes per annum Bouly gold project – both in West Africa’s Burkina Faso – in addition to being general manager for the 6 million tonnes per annum Lefa gold project in Guinea.
He resigned from his Tietto post last Friday.
The addition of Matt to our Board of Directors and the wealth of experience he has in designing, constructing and operating mines in West Africa will benefit Toubani enormously as it advances with momentum towards developing the next gold mine in West Africa.
Toubani Resources chief executive officer Phil Russo
In a further boardroom reshuffle, Toubani says its existing non-executive director Scott Perry will assume the executive-chairman position in a swap with Danny Callow, who will transition to a non-executive director position.
Kobada is an oxide-dominant deposit covering a 136-square-kilometre mining permit that is valid through to 2045, in addition to two adjacent exploration concessions. It extends for more than 5km in length, with the existing resource estimate defined within a planned 4.5km-long open pit.
The resource totals 87 million tonnes at 0.84 grams per tonne gold for 2.4 million ounces.
The latest highlights from Toubani’s now-completed resource definition drill campaign show a 57m section grading 2.48g/t gold from 85m including a 1m hit at 25.7g/t from 115m and a deeper 9m slice going 5.08g/t from 125m. The program was designed to update Kobada’s resource estimate this quarter.
The campaign tested key areas of near-surface, open-pittable oxide mineralisation within or immediately adjacent to preliminary pit designs.
The latest results add to an already impressive list of assays recorded at Kobada in recent weeks, with a highlight 19m intercept going 20.6g/t gold from 69m containing a bonanza-grade 2m hit at an “eye-watering” 178g/t from 69m.
Mali is the fourth-biggest gold producer in Africa, with output expected to continue to increase as more operations come online. The country is a hotspot for several major miners including Barrick Gold, which has gold mines at its 11 million-ounce Loulo project and the 5.1 million-ounce Gounkoto operation.
The company is intent on delivering its definitive feasibility study (DFS) in a timely manner. It has appointed three new members to its DFS team, all of them experienced in their respective mining fields and with vast working knowledge on mining projects within Africa and they will join the existing technical team of Bill Oliver and Kerry Griffin.
Management says Marc Rowley is an experienced study manager and project director, who will oversee the delivery of the Kobada DFS jointly with Oliver. Dave Clark is a mining engineer with more than 30 years of experience and he will lead the mining study for the DFS, while Dhanu Anandarasa is a corporate development executive and financial analyst, who will head up the financial and economic modelling for the study.
All five team members will work with well-credentialled consulting groups Lycopodium, Orelogy, Entech and Knight Piesold to drive the delivery of the DFS.
With a beefed-up management and DFS team combined with a resource that continues to grow in a renowned gold region, Toubani is well-placed to ride the latest gold wave.
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