Sabodala is located in Senegal, some 650 km east of the capital Dakar. The project contains two deposits – Sabodala and Niakafiri – which lie in a granted 20km² mining concession. The project is 90% owned through MDL’s operating company Sabodala Gold Operations SA, 10% by the Government of the Republic of Senegal.
The Sabodala and Niakafiri gold deposits are situated in the Mako Mafic Volcanic Belt and lie within the west Birimian gold province, which is host to some of the world’s largest gold deposits.
Sabodala is sited on a small hill of unweathered metabasalts. Locally, the volcanics are intruded by subvolcanic dolerite and gabbro sills and dykes, as well as quartz-feldspar porphyry and unfoliated rhyolite dykes. The gold mineralisation is associated with quartz, sericite, ankerite/siderite veining and orange-coloured silica-albite-carbonate-pyrite alteration. The main sulphide mineral is pyrite, although free gold does occur.
The Niakafiri deposit, about 3km south of Sabodala, is interpreted to be a westerly-dipping shear-hosted mineralised system. Underlying rock types comprise structurally modified and sheared mafic and ultramafic volcanics and, in both the oxide and primary zone, fuchsite alteration is common. The bulk of the mineralisation at Niakafiri is controlled by the main shear foliation, with most of the mineralisation hosted within the pyritic alteration zones.
As of 2009, proven plus probable mineral reserves for the two deposits total 18.3Mt, grading 2.39g/t for 1.4Moz of contained gold. Of these total reserves, the mineable (diluted) reserve for the Sabodala deposit is an estimated 15.8Mt at an average grade of 2.49g/t for 1,264,000oz at a 0.8g/t cut-off grade, while the mineable open-pit reserve estimate for the Niakafiri deposit is 2.5Mt grading 1.76g/t for 142,000oz at a 0.5g/t cut-off.
MDL also estimates that potential underground zones beneath the 210m pit bottom contain 1.7Mt of undiluted measured and indicated resources averaging 4.7g/t above a 3g/t cut-off grade. Collectively, these zones are estimated to contain about 265,000oz, warranting the evaluation of underground mining options.
The deposits will be mined by conventional open-pit methods. Ore mining was scheduled to start in June 2008 with a target of 500,000t of ore to be placed on the pad prior to mill start-up by the September 2008 quarter. The mine is expected to produce about 150,000oz of gold annually over its scheduled ten-year life.