Inata (Belahouro)

The property covers 2,600 ha located 220 km north-northeast of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, along the western part of the Djibo greenstone belt near the Mali-Burkina Faso border.

The project will have a seven-year mine life with payback after 2.7 years at a $650 (U.S.) per ounce gold price.

Mining at Inata will be carried out using conventional drilling, blasting, loading, and hauling procedures and technology suitable for a medium-sized open pit mine. The mine fleet will be owner operated, using conventional mid-sized top hammer blast hole drill rigs, 200-tonne-class backhoe excavators and 91-tonne-class haul trucks. The mine will operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week. There are three principal pits which will be mined over the life of the project, located from approximately 300 m up to 3.5 kilometres from the primary crusher.

The mining rate will be approximately 20 million tpa through the project life. The ore mined will comprise highly weathered oxide material to transitional and fresh in the latter years. The ore mining rate will be 2.25 million tpa. The overall strip ratio for the project will be 6.9 to 1.

A CIL process with gravity concentration will yield recoveries of 93 per cent to 95 per cent in all ore types.

In 2006, Goldbelt purchased the Brocks Creek process plant located in the Northern Territory, Australia. The major equipment to be used from the Brocks Creek plant are the 48-inch-by-42-inch double-toggle jaw crusher, the 20-foot-by-11-foot SAG and 13-foot-by-16-foot ball mills, conveyors, feeders, the classification and gravity circuits, the elution and reagent mixing and storage facilities, and spare parts and equipment. The plant previously operated at a throughput capacity approaching 1.5 million tpa. To increase the throughput to 2.25 million tpa as required for the Inata project, Goldbelt Resources has secured an additional 12-foot-by-18-foot ball mill.

Tailings will be pumped to a dam located to the north of the process plant. The dam will be constructed mainly of mine waste material and raised periodically through the mine life to a final height of 40 m. The life of mine designed dam has a capacity of 10 million cubic metres.

A water dam will be constructed at Gomde to provide process water to the Inata project. The Gomde dam, situated approximately 18 km to the east of the proposed Inata plant site, will have a capacity of 100 million cubic m. Total mine annual water use is estimated to be 4.5 million cubic m.

A heavy fuel oil power station with a capacity of 10 MW, and a four MW diesel-fuelled backup plant will be installed to service all mine and administration services.

A 35 km, all-weather gravel access road will be constructed from the Dori-Djibo road to the project site. The Inata operations will use a fly-in, fly-out roster and all operating staff will be accommodated within the mine village. The Inata mine village will be built to house 230 staff, and will include catering and recreational facilities

Goldbelt will also be constructing a 1.5 km airstrip capable of handling aircraft of mixed passenger/cargo configurations.