Akobo Minerals - Update on key activities
Akobo Minerals (Euronext Oslo – “AKOBO”), the Scandinavian-based Ethiopian gold exploration and boutique mining company, today announced that SRK (Australasia) has started to update the resource estimate for Segele.
As previously stated, the plan is to mine the first gold at Segele before the end of the year. To achieve that, three main elements must be in place. 1) A high confidence mineral resource estimate, 2) a turn-key industry standard processing plant and 3) a professional mining operation. Considerable progress has been made in all these areas over the last few weeks.
- Mineral Resource Update - After much delay from ALS Ireland, the latest Drill hole database has now been sent to resource estimation experts at SRK in Perth, Australia. Akobo Minerals expects that parts of the previous inferred mineral resource will be upgraded to indicated resources. Indicated resources have a much higher confidence and such an upgrade would be a strong validation of the company’s revenue potential. Additionally, it is expected that new inferred mineral resources will be added. The results will be released as soon as they are available.
- Processing Plant Heads of Agreement - Akobo Minerals is close to finalizing an agreement with a Processing Plant contractor with a long track record of successful delivery of gold processing plants.
- Contract Mining Negotiations - Following a successful bidding process, Akobo Minerals is finalizing its options for the mining operation including final negotiation with experienced Contract Mining Companies. Akobo Minerals has several options on the table including operations by contractors and experienced miners who are currently engaged in similar operations to those planned at Segele and have excellent track record working with major and junior mining companies.
With these three activities close to completion, the company is confident that it can release a cash flow model of the Segele mine to illustrate the expected return on investment.
