British Columbia – Asante Gold Corporation has provided an update on the ramp‑up of the new sulphide treatment plant (STP) at the Bibiani Gold Mine in Ghana.
Highlights
- Ramp‑up: Construction and commissioning are complete. Plant operations began on a 12‑hour basis on September 27, 2025, with a continuous 24‑hour operation established from September 29, 2025.
- Gold Recovery: Process optimisation progressed through late November 2025, but without the benefit of the oxygen plant, which was committed for delivery in September 2025, but not delivered until late November 2025.
This has caused a significant delay to the optimisation program. The oxygen plant came online on December 3, 2025, and the Aachen Reactor is now running as designed.
Gold recovery at the STP has improved significantly from 60% to now exceeding 90%, with overall gold recovery of 82%. Adjustments to operating parameters, including reagent addition practices, will continue with the objective of achieving +90% recovery overall, in the near term.
The process plant remains on track to reach ~92% gold recovery overall, in line with pilot testwork and current optimisation initiatives.
- Capacity: The STP has a nameplate capacity of ~4.0 million tonnes per year (Mt/y) or 12,000 tonnes per day, which is in line with plans to increase the capacity of the processing plant from 3.2M tonnes per year.
Commenting on this development, David Anthony, President and CEO, stated, “The sulphide treatment plant is now running continuously, and optimisation is well underway. This is a pivotal step in Bibiani’s growth profile”.
He continued: “ As gold recovery moves toward our ~92% target and throughput rises to 4M tonnes per year, we expect meaningful improvements in gold production and unit costs at Bibiani.”
Operations Update
Since start‑up, Asante’s team has focused on a controlled ramp‑up that prioritises stable throughput, reagent optimisation and regrind to achieve liberation of gold.
Near‑term priorities include: • Sustaining 24/7 operations while optimising flotation kinetics, concentrate regrind and CIP operation; • Near-term STP objectives include achieving targeted ~92% gold recovery and increasing Process Plant throughput toward 4.0M t/y design capacity by Q2 2026; and • Higher‑grade ore is now being processed from the Main Pit in line with mine sequencing, so that gold production is increasing.
