Baomahun Sierra Leone

Highlights
Baomahun is Amara’s feasibility stage project in Sierra Leone and is wholly owned by the Company. An updated resource estimate, consisting of 2.24Moz Au in indicated resources and 0.54Moz Au in inferred resources, is hosted in an area of approximately 2 sq. km, while the total project licence area is 136 sq. km.   A 3D visualisation of our updated resource model can be found here.


The Company has a two-fold strategy for Baomahun: to advance towards production with the current resources while delineating additional ounces along the 12km strike.


The Company is advancing Baomahun towards its bankable feasibility study, which is due in H1 2013.  SRK Consulting Limited has completed an initial open pit mine schedule based on a US$1,150 per ounce gold price, which contained 1.2 million ounces of indicated resources at an average diluted grade of 2.23g/t and a strip ratio of 12.6:1. The indicative open pit also contains 0.1 million ounces of inferred resources which have been treated as waste in the initial analysis. This generates a robust eight year mine life, producing 1.1 million ounces of gold at an average rate of 135,000 ounces per annum. 


In addition, Baomahun has the potential for operating cost savings from hydro-electric power.  A study has been completed for a 24MW run-of-river hydro-electric power generation project within 40km of Baomahun. This is estimated to have sufficient capacity to provide the project’s power needs for 72% of the year, with a heavy fuel oil power station required for the height of the dry season. For a conventional CIL plant, the power requirements for grinding are a significant element of the total production costs. Accordingly, hydro-electric power can provide substantial savings in operating costs compared to the high cost of power from oil. The hydro-electric power opportunity will also de-couple the project economics from the long term oil price, creating an effective mechanism to contain cash costs into the future.


As the second branch of the two-fold strategy, Amara is focusing on demonstrating the significant upside potential at Baomahun.  A series of high priority drill targets were originally identified along strike through a geophysical VTEM survey, which was completed in 2010. These targets highlighted possible conductors which had the potential to be caused by sulphide minerals associated with gold as in the resource area. Drill results in the area 300m to 900m north of the resource area have confirmed the presence of gold. Multiple intercepts include 5m at 2.1g/t from 17m, 10m at 1.5g/t from 37m and 8m at 1.5g/t from 118m all within a single drill hole. 



High grade core in the current resource area at Baomahun



Basis for Technical Disclosure
The technical information contained on this webpage, and more generally contained on this website pertaining to Baomahun, is based on the technical report entitled "Technical Review of the Baomahun Gold Exploration Project, Sierra Leone" dated as of August 12, 2010 and prepared by Dr. John Arthur and Dr. Chris Bonson, who are "qualified persons" (as such term is defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) and independent of Amara Mining plc. A copy of the report can be found by clicking on the link entitled "Baomahun NI43-101.pdf" under "Related Links".  A technical report for the updated resource announced on 19 November 2012 was filed on SEDAR on 03 January 2013 (within 45 days).