Ethiopia's Kurmuk Gold Mine Completes Grid Connection; First Ore Enters Crushing System

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 17, Canada's Allied Gold announced the latest construction and commissioning progress at the Kurmuk gold mine. The 88-kilometer transmission line connecting the project to Ethiopia's national grid has completed commissioning and been officially energized. The 132kV line and supporting substation were built by Ethiopian Electric Power and are now able to provide stable power for the mine's subsequent system commissioning and production ramp-up. The two parties have signed a 20-year power purchase agreement, with an electricity price of approximately US$0.04/kWh.

Earlier this month, the first ore from the Kurmuk gold mine entered the already-commissioned crushing system, which is being handed over from the construction and commissioning team to the operations team. The company expects to feed ore to the grinding and downstream processing systems in the coming weeks, followed by first gold production.

Mining is currently advancing in parallel, with approximately 1 million tonnes of ore stockpiled, and plans to continue increasing this to nearly 1.5 million tonnes, equivalent to about 3 months of plant feed ahead of full-process commissioning. Initial mining sources come from the Dish Mountain and Ashashire open pits, with current proven and probable ore reserves totaling approximately 2.7 million ounces of gold.

Kurmuk uses conventional truck-and-shovel open-pit mining, supported by a CIL carbon-in-leach processing plant. The project is located in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of western Ethiopia, with a mining license area of approximately 1,450 square kilometers. Remaining electrical, instrumentation, and system testing is still underway, and each unit will be handed over to the operations team once design parameter verification is completed.

According to Allied Gold's current plan, Kurmuk's gold production in its first full production year is expected to be 240,000–270,000 ounces, and approximately 300,000 ounces the following year; average annual production over the first 4 years is expected to be approximately 290,000 ounces, with an initial target mine life of 15 years.