Tanzanian Gold

PROJECT DIRECTED BY Glen Newton

WRITTEN BY Laura Watling

TRX Gold

A Business Worth its Weight in Gold

Found in Africa’s fourth largest producer of gold, Tanzania, the Buckreef Gold Project comprises five active prospects - Buckreef, Bingwa, Tembo, Eastern Porphyry, and the recently discovered Anfield. In 2021, Tanzania accounted for 1.3% of the world’s total global gold production. Led by TRX Gold (headquartered in Toronto, Canada) in partnership with Tanzania’s state mining corporation (STAMICO), the project, which is fully licensed for the mining and extraction of gold, is currently undertaking considerable expansion. CEO Stephen Mullowney, who has been at the company for 18 months, speaks to Business Enquirer about the exciting project, its discoveries, and the next steps.

TRX Gold

“Over the last 16 months, we’ve been focused on creating shareholder value by discovering, investigating and expanding the known gold zones at Buckreef Gold,” explained Stephen.

Measures that the company is undertaking to fulfil this include step-out drilling in the northeast and southwest extensions of Buckreef Main, and infill drilling at Buckreef West. TRX Gold also plans to undertake infill drilling to upgrade Mineral Resources in Buckreef Main.

Buckreef, the flagship site of the Buckreef project, encompasses three main mineralised zones - Buckreef South, Buckreef Main and Buckreef North. Additionally, TRX Gold will seek to upgrade historical mineral resources at Eastern Porphyry, Bingwa and Tembo, as well as develop an exploration program for the newly discovered Anfield Zone.

“The project is undergoing a very exciting period of expansion,” said Stephen, “We’re currently processing 360 tonnes of ‘ore’ (economic gold bearing rock) per day, but by the end of August 2022, this will triple to 1000 tonnes per day. Put another way, every month we are currently producing over 750 troy ounces of gold, but with the expended plant this will grow to approximately 2,000 troy ounces a month. With gold selling at around $1,750 per ounce, this makes for an exciting start to our business”.

Oxide mining underway at Buckreef

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FEMA Mining

FEMA Mining has earned a reputation of being a reliable operational partner to mining organizations across the Tanzanian marketplace with a vision to be a competitive mining contractor and we are experts in meeting the specific needs of your project.

Located strategically within the Lake Zone mining area, we can also extend our service to operations across the East Africa Region. We can optimize the best benefit world class level services to clients in mining business and to provide energy with operational excellence and reliable service to support national prosperity have comprehensive fleet of equipment for open pit mining and surface work and our team includes experienced and highly skilled workers and supervisors. Our areas of focus are open pit mining, overburden removal, equipment hiring and drill & blast operations. We strive to develop strong relationships with communities and build sustainable value in local regions by providing a range of support to local society.

FEMA earned the load and haul contract with TRX Gold Corporation at Buckreef since 2019. We have assisted them with several key capital expansion project e.g., plant expansion, tailing storage facility and overburden removal as well as with their day-to-day operations for open pit mining.

We would like to congratulate Steven and his team for the leading the project into prosperous future. We would also like to thank him for his continued support, and we wish TRX Gold Team every success from the future.

Our Managing Director, Hassan Ally, is at hand to answer your questions to how FEMA Mining can be a key partner to your operations.

www.femamining.co.tz

www.femamining.co.tz

TRX Gold

Reinvestment to aid growth

TRX plans to use cash-flow generated from its current production to expand its exploration programme, as well as to advance the metallurgical study of its Sulphide Development Project.

“The work we are doing within the Sulphide Development Project will help evaluate the possibility for a high return, large scale project,” explained Stephen, “variability metallurgical studies are currently underway, which is set to be the first 5-7 years of this much larger project”.

The discovery of the Anfield Zone offers yet more opportunity for TRX.

“Our plans for this year include drilling the Anfield Zone and extending the Eastern Porphyry Zone,” shared Stephen.

Most recently, in June 2022, TRX Gold announced a 250 metre northeast extension of the Buckreef Gold Main Zone, to a total strike length of 1.8 kilometres. The drill rig is now exploring the southwest area of the Main Zone.

“With the combined expansion and development, we will be able to expand the scope and scale of the Buckreef Gold project,” said Stephen.

Part of the Buckreef truck fleet

The Most Valuable Asset

With ambitious development over the next year, TRX Gold has had to grow its human resource to match.

“We’ve added an additional 200 staff to the mine site in the last year. I’m really excited by how knowledgeable, industry experienced and hardworking the Tanzanian people are,” shared Stephen.

The additional staff takes TRX Gold’s headcount to 300 at the mine site - 100 of TRX Gold’s own employees and a further 200 contractors.

“Finding human resources and financial capital are both a challenge at the moment. However, the economy is rebounding and both the tourism and mining industries in the country are starting to see a positive shift,” the CEO said.

As part of the business’ sustainability programme, TRX Gold runs educational programmes and classroom building in partnership with the local community. It hopes, in turn, it will be able to hire additional staff through this initiative.

Both respect and collaboration are key...

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Stephen believes company culture will play an important role in a future recruitment drive, ensuring prospective employees consider TRX Gold as an exciting and attractive place to work, on a corporate and ground level.

“Both respect and collaboration are key,” said Stephen

Stephen, who joined the business 18 months ago, comes from a financial background, having worked at PwC for 10 years.

“My experience at PwC enabled me to be well traveled and included work with governments, it has equipped me well to transition to TRX Gold,” he said.

TRX Gold

Framed by Good ESG Practices

The development of the Buckreef Gold project comes at a time when sustainable mining couldn’t be more newsworthy.

“The Buckreef Gold Project started at the same time that the UN launched the Decade of Action for Sustainable Development Goals,” explained Stephen, “everything that we do is framed by TRX Gold’s Sustainable Development goals. ESG is central to our business”.

TRX Gold’s philosophy is that its projects should benefit the local community in which it is exploring. As such, almost 100% of positions at the mine site are filled by Tanzanian people, and as locally as possible.

“We keep our procurement as local as possible too, from the produce used in the kitchen through to the contractors. This has been integral to help keep our carbon footprint low, and has also benefited us in a time when supply chains have been significantly disrupted globally,” shared Stephen.

The project is connected to the local electrical grid which already has a large hydro-electric component. Once the Julius Nyerere Dam is completed in a few years’ time it will be predominantly renewable energy. The project is also recycling 100% of its wastewater.

Time to deliver

“Thanks to the project’s rather simple metallurgy and low-cost nature, current gold production has been able to achieve a 90% gold-recovery rate and a 73% gross profit margin at the end of our Q3,” explained Stephen.

With its processing plant capacity increasing to 1000 tonnes per day, the project’s gold yield is set to reach 20,000 oz per year. This gives TRX Gold the required investment opportunities to deliver on its development and expansion aims, whilst also implementing its ESG programme.

Geita RC inspecting the 45th plant construction progress

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