Côte d’Ivoire puts gold developers on the fast track

• The West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire is one of the fastest growing countries for gold production
• Gold companies have been able to move quickly from exploration to production
• Many Peaks is hoping to emulate companies like new producer Montage and developer Turaco

Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa is one of the hottest places on the planet for gold discovery and development.

“It’s one of the places you can go quickest from discovery to production,” Montage Gold CEO Martino De Ciccio told the Precious Metals Summit in Colorado last month.

And Montage would know, as the Canadian company recently announced it had poured first gold at its Koné gold mine.

The company started construction on the large-scale, US$885 million mine in late 2024 with an original schedule of first production in Q2 2027.

Earlier this year, that schedule was brought forward to December 2026, so it was a surprise when Montage announced the first pour had occurred in late September.

The US$885m Koné project is forecast to produce 301,000 ounces of gold per annum at all-in sustaining costs of US$1195 an ounce in the first 10 years of a 16-year mine life.

Based on a US$4000/oz gold price, the 2024 updated feasibility study returned a post-tax net present value (5% discount rate) of US$4.8 billion and internal rate of return of 93.9%.

Montage is already talking about producing 350,000-400,000ozpa from Koné as well as quickly developing its second mine.

A blueprint

Montage is backed by the Lundin family and China’s Zijin Mining and has a market capitalisation of over C$6bn, making it a company many others would like to emulate.

Many Peaks Minerals (ASX:MPK) is a good local example of how quickly a company can progress a project in Côte d’Ivoire.

The company only acquired its flagship Ferké project in 2024 from another Côte d’Ivoire. up-and-comer Turaco Gold.

“This project has evolved very quickly for us,” Many Peaks managing director Travis Schwertfeger said during a recent investor presentation in Perth.

At the time, Ferké was non-core to Turaco as it was assumed it was more of a 250,000oz satellite project.

“We had a geologic concept there that the mineralisation plunged to the south, which turned out to be true, and we quickly built that to 1.3 million ounces in our maiden resource in April this year, about 13 months after our first results,” Schwertfeger said. 

Earlier this month, Many Peaks reported results from beneath the 1.32Moz Ouarigue resource including 188.9m at 3.58g/t gold from 633m, including 46.75m at 7.02g/t; and 59.2m at 2.3g/t from 556.8m, including 34.2m at 3.34g/t.

A resource update is due any day now.

“We’re seeing an increase in gold per vertical metre right now – it’s a little under 2400,” Schwertfeger said.

“That’s looking a bit higher, even at a higher cutoff down dip, and we think we could potentially pull an underground down to 1-1.2km, so there’s another 300m to drill beneath this.” 

Schwertfeger is confident of building a 2Moz mineable resource over time.

The company has also started to step out regionally and is seeing economic gold grades.

“We think we’re going to add additional pits on this 37km of strike,” Schwertfeger said.

“Typically, these types of systems you’ll have three or four pits in a belt. They’re not usually just one standalone. 

“So, we do view this as a 5-6 million ounce district, with quite a bit more exploration ahead of us to complement this initial hit.”

Canaccord Genuity analyst Paul Howard has a hypothetical target of 3Moz for Ferké.

PFS due

The release of the updated resource will pave the way for the release of a pre-feasibility study.

Canaccord’s Howard has previously outlined a potential 3-3.5 million tonnes per annum operation that could annually produce 130,000-150,000 ounces of gold over 7-8 years.

“We were targeting end of November with a PFS, but we’re going to add an underground scoping study for that,” Schwertfeger said.

“We’re just sorting out if we can still hit the same timeline on that.”

No matter the timing of the release, Many Peaks will complete an environmental and social impact assessment and submit a mining application by early next year.

“That will be our catalyst for beginning a full feasibility study,” Schwertfeger said. 

“Mining application and feasibility concurrent, potentially having a mining permit by early 2028, and that would bring us to a decision to mine and construction in the first half of 2028, so a very aggressive schedule for us to push this thing into development.”

While there are several large miners active in Côte d’Ivoire, including Perseus Mining (ASX:PRU) and London-based Endeavour Mining, the country has also been active for merger and acquisition activity in recent years.

China’s Zhaojin Mining acquired Tietto Minerals, Montage picked up African Gold and this week, Turaco Gold (ASX:TCG) consolidated the rest of the Afema project it didn’t already own for $112m.

Schwertfeger said Many Peaks had strong backing from high-net-worth investors but had deliberately kept institutions off the register in the early days.

“They can come in big, but they also go out big when they exit a stock, and they do it for various random reasons, so we’ve always wanted to keep that tight register,” he said.

“But now that we have a development project on the horizon, we’ve purposely only just in the last six months started marketing this internationally into institutional groups to bring that type of investment, and these are the groups that can then help us fund this development project and provide the capex.” 

The company raised $27.5m in May, which is being used to fund ongoing drilling, as well as the PFS. 

Schwertfeger said the company was focused on developing the project itself.

“We’ve intentionally not taken any corporate placements in the company, although there has been interest,” he said. 

“Quite a few groups have asked to take shares and offered money, but we’ve been able to finance ourselves without those placements, and I just see them as a cap to bringing in early strategic investors. 

“So if somebody wants it, they’ll have to pay for it all at once and seriously bid it up to get it.” 

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Many Peaks Minerals is a Stockhead advertiser, the company did not sponsor this article.

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