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Hyde, however, saw op- “

success but the falling gold We have kept the team together in March 2016, continued
price from mid-2012 extin- to return ultra high-grade
guished the West African and we are keen to build more intercepts, even the new
flame, leaving WAF and its projects, but they have to be the right study was quickly super-
peers in the region drifting. projects for us. We are not going to seded.
“M1 South changed our
portunity in the malaise, overplay our hand, put our balance whole approach to the pro-
securing the acquisition of ject because suddenly you
dormant TSX-listed explor- sheet at risk or do a project because are getting hundreds of
er Channel Resources and grams per tonne and vis-
its Tanlouka (now renamed we think we have to. ible gold right through the
Sanbrado) gold project in orebody,” Hyde said. “We
Burkina Faso in 2014. already knew M5 was big
The issue of timing again enough to fill the plant for
raised its head. Channel had defined a “We believed we could get $US50 mil- 10 years but M1 South quickly became
resource of around 750,000oz at the M5 lion, so we decided that based on the the difference for the project – the real
deposit but WAF’s own review reduced 300,000oz we had in pits over M5, that sweetener.”
that number to 300,000oz, inadequate we would build a heap leach operation. The high-grade orebody is the cor-
for full-scale production. However, the We bought a heap leach plant off Per- nerstone of Sanbrado, with the under-
company’s options were constrained by seus [Mining Ltd] for $200,000.” ground expected to deliver 650,000oz
the conditions of the licence. WAF returned to the drill bit in an effort @ 10.2 g/t gold over an initial six years.
“On acquisition, we only had 18 to improve the economics, a final roll of It provided the high-grade ballast of
months to convert to a mining licence,” the dice coming in December 2015 via WAF’s June 2018 DFS which identified
Hyde said. “So, we had to drill it out and a $2 million capital raising intended to a project capable of producing 211,000
complete a feasibility study to justify a fund drilling at M5 and two new targets; ozpa at $US551/oz AISC for five years
mining licence.” M1 and M3 and despite initially mixed and 133,000 ozpa at $US640/oz over a
The economics were underwhelming; results, an intercept of 12m @ 53.11 g/t full 11-year mine life.
an oxide heap leach starter project ca- gold, including 1m @ 534.45 g/t, from M1 Such numbers from Sanbrado placed
pable of producing 69,000oz in the first in February 2016 dramatically changed WAF in a similar class to the likes of Or-
three years with an NPV of $US86 mil- the complexion of Sanbrado. bis Gold and Papillon Resources; Aus-
lion, hardly inspiring to a market which The heap leach concept was aban- tralian juniors in West Africa which had
had fallen out of love with West African doned, replaced in February 2017 by a been snapped up by international play-
junior gold stories. nine-year, 150,000 ozpa open pit/CIL ers at big premiums.
“It was predicated on what we thought feasibility study model. However, as drill- Hyde had never set his sights on
we could raise in the market,” Hyde said. ing of the M1 South orebody, discovered becoming a miner but as Sanbrado

Sanbrado is corner-stoned by a high-
grade underground orebody, which is
expected to deliver 650,000oz @ 10.2
g/t gold over an initial six years

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT DeCeMBeR 2020 - JaNUaRY 2021 Page 27