IAMGOLD : reports 2015 reserves of 7.7 million ounces and measured and indicated resources of 23.5 million ounces
Envoyer par mail
02/17/2016 | 05:06pm US/Eastern
All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.
TORONTO, Feb. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - IAMGOLD Corporation ("IAMGOLD" or "the Company") today announced its 2015 year-end mineral reserve and resource statement. (See attached table for more details.)
Total attributable proven and probable gold reserves decreased by 11% from 8.6 million ounces of gold at the end of 2014 to 7.7 million ounces at the end of 2015. The decrease of 918,000 ounces was primarily due to depletion as IAMGOLD's 2015 attributable gold production was 806,000 ounces. Other significant factors that contributed to the revised reserve estimation includes:
-- a lower gold price assumption (-294,000) for reserves at the Company's
owned and operated mines of $1,200 per ounce at December 31, 2015
compared to $1,300 a year earlier,
-- the positive impact (+337,000) of changes in the economic parameters at
Essakane,
-- at Westwood, the conversion of 213,000 ounces of resources to reserves,
offset by a refinement of the reserve model that resulted from
additional infill drilling and modeling, and
-- at Sadiola, the Company's joint venture in Mali, the conversion of
211,000 ounces of resources to reserves, as well as an increase in their
gold price assumption to $1,190 per ounce at December 31, 2015 compared
to $1,100 a year earlier.
Total attributable measured and indicated gold resources (inclusive of reserves) increased at all sites and overall by 10% or 2.1 million ounces to 23.5 million ounces of gold at the end of 2015. There was no change in the $1,500 per ounce gold price assumption for resources at the Company's owned and operated mines. The key contributors included:
-- at Rosebel, a positive change in the economic parameters,
-- at Essakane, cost improvements that qualified more ounces for inclusion
in the resource model and the discovery of more ounces at the
Falagountou deposit,
-- at both the Côté Gold and Boto Gold projects, additional drilling and
modeling identified more indicated resources, and
-- at Sadiola, a positive change in the economic parameters partially
offset by the lower gold price assumption for resources of $1,400 per
ounce compared to $1,600 a year earlier.
As at December 31, 2015, the Company also had attributable inferred resources of 6.7 million ounces.
Steve Letwin, President and CEO of IAMGOLD, said, "In 2015, the exploration team did an outstanding job advancing our high potential projects through the pipeline. Their success was all the more impressive given that our spend of $49 million for exploration, including greenfield programs and project studies, was 30% below 2014 exploration expenditures and down 50% from the year before that. The results have been very positive with an overall 10% increase in measured and indicated resources. In addition, the Company announced the first mineral resource estimate in western Mali at the Diakha-Siribaya project where a significant portion of the estimate is derived from the newly discovered Diakha deposit which is open in all directions and has significant potential for expansion.
"Drilling activities on projects and mine sites totaled approximately 240,000 metres for the year. At our current annual rates of gold production, our 7.7 million ounce reserve represents a collective mine life of our gold assets of approximately 10 years and our 23.5 million ounce measured and indicated resource give the Company an extensive resource profile, enhanced by recent resource declarations and additions at our wholly-owned exploration projects in Senegal and Brazil. Our budget for 2016 $47 million is similar to the previous year's budget, although the allocation shifts from spending on brownfield and greenfield exploration to more emphasis on feasibility and other studies, such as for the Boto Gold project."