Asante Gold produces 9,300 oz gold in September, Ghana

Asante Gold Corp. [ASE-CSE; ASGOF-OTC; ASG-GSE; 1A9-FSE] provided an update and status report for the initiatives the company has taken at its 100%-owned Bibiani and Chirano gold mines in Ghana, West Africa.

The first gold pour at the Bibiani Gold Mine occurred on July 7, 2022, two months ahead of schedule.

All process plant and mine facilities are operating on a 24 hour per day basis, with ~220,000 tonnes of ore treated in September. Asante plans to increase throughput to 250,000 tonnes ore per month by Q1 2023.

Gold production in September was just above 9,300 ounces, 17% above the company’s start up plan.

Mine plan and mine to mill reconciliation for the Walsh satellite pit and Main Pit were on target.

The Walsh Pit continues to outperform, relative to initial planned gold production. The area between the Walsh and Main pits were historically used for tailings storage. This area has now been partially explored and Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources have increased from 20,000 to more than 100,000 ounces (1.37 MT with gold grade of 2.62 g/t). The drilling program to explore this trend and to support the planned underground mining strategy has been initiated.

The company’s plan to extend the Bibiani LOM (life of mine) from 8.3 years to +10 years is on track with successful development exploration at Russel South (see press releases of March 29th and August 17th) and drilling programs have commenced at the Grasshopper and Elizabeth deposits. The company will continue its near mine development exploration program with planned drilling of approximately 30,000 metres per year for 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The company filed an updated NI 43-101 – Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects technical report on the Bibiani Gold Mine on September 1, 2022 that incorporates exploration and mine planning results to February 28, 2022 and increased the Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources by 26.4% to 2.29M ounces (31.57 MT with gold grade of 2.24 g/t) and are further classified as 1.95M ounces of Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves (28.4 MT with gold grade of 2.14 g/t). An updated NI 43-101 technical report to incorporate results of the 2022 exploration program is planned for Q3 2023. We anticipate this report will define additional ounces to the current resource and LOM.

The Chirano Gold Mine acquisition was completed on August 10, 2022. This acquisition added Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources of 28.1Mt at 1.26 g/t gold (1.13 Moz) and Inferred Mineral Resources of 6.05Mt at 1.91 g/t (0.37 Moz) to Asante’s gold resource.

The company has initiated a Chirano Transition and Business Improvement Plan to increase Chirano current gold production by 30% and to reduce AISC (all-in sustaining costs) by 10% by 2024.

Asante plans to invest minimum of $5M/y in near mine and regional exploration over the next three years with the target to increase Chirano LOM from current 5 to +10 years; exploration of the Aboduabo and Chine targets has been initiated.

Dave Anthony, President and CEO stated, “We are very pleased with the progress that we have made thus far in 2022. Over the past 12 months Asante has been transformed from an early exploration company to a mid-tier producer. We continue to develop the business as planned and delivered more than 20,750 ounces in September. Value creation initiatives are proceeding across our business as planned. As we gather momentum on both of our mining operations, on exploration activities and advance with production improvement initiatives, we look forward to providing further updates.”