Canada's Asante Gold Corporation buys Bibiani mine in Ghana

Canadian gold developer Asante Gold Corporation has agreed to acquire the Bibiani gold mine in Ghana from Australian gold miner Resolute Mining for $90 million, the company said.

"Anytime you can pick up a 2.5 Moz [in gold resources] project with very large exploration upside and fully permitted for a reasonable price - you do it," Asante president and CEO Douglas MacQuarrie told S&P Global Platts in an email August 6.

The sale of the Bibiani mine had been approved by Ghana's minister of lands and natural resources, and is expected to be complete in the next 10 days, Resolute Mining said in a statement August 5.

Resolute Mining said that it would use the initial cash receipt of $30 million from the sale of the Bibiani mine to repay debt, noting that Asante was dedicated to injecting the necessary capital to achieve the rapid restart of the mine.

"Asante, which owns the Kubi gold mine in Ghana, is already building the management and operations team with a view to bring the Bibiani mine to production within the next year," MacQuarrie said in a statement.

Resolute acquired the brownfield Bibiani mine in 2014, placing it on care and maintenance following the acquisition to determine whether it could develop an economically viable, long term, larger scale underground operation.

Following completion of the sale of Bibiani, Resolute Mining's asset base will include the Syama gold mine in Mali and the Mako gold mine in Senegal.

Earlier sales attempt terminated

Resolute entered into a sales agreement for Bibiani with China's Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining Co. in December 2020, which was terminated in April this year. Chifeng terminated the sale on the grounds that the mining lease had been revoked or terminated or the validity or legality of the mining lease had been materially impacted, Resolute Mining said in an April 20 statement.

On March 24, Resolute advised that it had received a letter from the Ghanaian Minerals Commission advising that, on the instructions of the Ghanaian minister for lands and natural resources the mining lease for the Bibiani Gold Mine stood terminated, but by April 14, Resolute advised that the minister had notified the company that the mining lease for Bibiani had been restored.