B2Gold Corp has successful commissioned the mill expansion at the Fekola mine, in Mali, to 7.5 Mt/y, around one month ahead of the scheduled completion date of September 30, 2020.

The company has completed all major construction activities associated with the Fekola mill expansion, as well as successful execution of a process performance test to compare with design expectations, it said.

Four days after start-up, a five-day mill performance test was conducted from August 26 to August 30, 2020. The results of the performance test exceeded design in throughput, gold recovery, grind and availability over the period. The minor, outstanding construction work is expected to be completed by mid-September 2020, it said.

The expansion has seen the company expand the mining fleet (adding excavators, trucks, and drill rigs); bolster the mill with cyclone clusters, leach and CIP tanks; and complete a double lift on the tailings storage facility.

This has already had an impact on the mine’s core metrics. In the first half of the year, Fekola produced 311,435 oz of gold, 7% above budget and 39% higher than the first half of 2019.

B2Gold acquired Fekola through a merger with Papillon Resources in October 2014, with the company completing construction of the Fekola mill and commencing ore processing more than three months ahead of the original construction schedule and on budget, in September 2017.

The first gold pour at Fekola took place on October 7, 2017. Within only 60 days from start-up, the mine achieved commercial production on November 30, 2017, one month ahead of the revised schedule and four months ahead of the original schedule.