Randgold Resources and the Tongon Gold Mine
Randgold Resources, the major gold miner with exploration projects in the greenstone belts of West and Central Africa, is currently negotiating with some of its employees to end an illegal sit in at the Tongon mine.
We take this opportunity to find out a little more about the Tongon mine:
Located within the Nielle exploration permit, the Tongon Mine is situated in the north of Cote d’lvoire, jusr south of the border with Mali.
Randgold owns 89 percent of the mine, with the State of Cote d’lvoire owning 10 percent and 1 percent held by a local company.
Mining began at Tongon in 2010, with gold production from the open pit operation beginning in December the same year.
Tongon is made up of two open pit operations, helpfully named the Southern and Northern Zones. With a seven-year life of mine, Randgold is aiming to add to the current reserves through exploration which will of course succeed in extending that.
Since mining at Tongon began, a total of 242,948 oz of gold has been produced, earning a profit of $75.4 million. Tongon has an estimated 2 Moz in total reserves.
Randgold, through Tongon, is committed to minimising the influx of outsiders into the area and avoiding any disruption to community life. The company employs locally first and spreading recruitment between local villages, followed then by regionally and then nationally before internationally. Well, the proof is in the pudding – or in this case, the numbers: upwards of 97 percent of employees at the mine are Ivoirians. As of 2015, 79 percent of the operational labour is from local villages and overall, the operational labour complement for Tongon comprises 1,767 personnel.
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