Tijirit (Au)

About Tijirit

The Tijirit Gold Project is located in northwestern Mauritania, 25 kilometers southeast of Kinross’ Tasiast Gold Mine. The project is a district-scale orogenic gold camp with development stage gold deposits within multiple pits. The 26-year mining permit consists of a single 150 square-kilometer area with enormous exploration upside with multiple styles of structurally controlled gold mineralization and multiple untested structural targets. A feasibility study is scheduled for completion in the first half of 2022.

Highlights

Ownership: 75% Aya, 15% Government of Mauritania, and 10% Wafa Mining
M&I mineral resources: 4.1 Mt grading 2.19 g/t Au for 292,600 oz (Eleonore 1.58Mt @ 4.21 g/t Au for 214,700 oz): May 2021
Inferred mineral resources: 10.2Mt grading 1.63 g/t Au for 533,200 oz (Eleonore 2.7Mt @ 3.21 g/t Au for 280,500 oz Au): May 2021
26-year mining permit comprising 5 zones over a 150-km2 area
Four major prospects -Eleonore, Eleonore East, Sophie, and Lily- host M&I resources
Completion of feasibility study by Q2 2022, together with maiden mineral reserves estimate
- Initial focus on Eleonore and Eleonore East deposits
- Base-case scenario of a 1,000-tpd processing plant, easily expandable to 2,000 tpd

History

1994 - 1996

Discovery of Au anomalies

1997 - 2006

Tijirit consists of 447B2 and 1117B2
exploration permits

2007 - 2013

447B2 permit held by
Shield Mining Mauritania

2010

1117B2 acquired
by Shield Mining

2013-2017

447B2 & 1117B2 permits
acquired by Gryphon Mineral

2015-2017

447B2 & 1117B2 permits
acquired by Algold;
grant of mining permit

2016

NI 43-101 report

2018

Preliminary Economic Assessment

2021

Acquisition of Algold by Aya;
15,000m drill program

Feasibility Study

A feasibility study has been launched to assess the potential for developing Tijirit. The study envisages a base case scenario of a 1,000-tpd processing plant that can be easily expanded to 2,000 tpd. The proposed initial flowsheet will comprise a conventional primary crush and SAG milling circuit, followed by gravity gold recovery and leaching.

2018 PEA

Pre-tax NPV of $94.9M and 28.4% IRR at an 8% discount rate a gold price of $1,250/oz
After-tax NPV of $69.0M at an 8% discount rate with an IRR of 23.5%
Production of over 580,000 ounces of gold over a +7-year mine life, at an All In Sustaining Cost (AISC) of $726/oz
Payback: 1.8 years (after-tax)
Potential for improved economics through increased resource definition

Technical reports

Technical Report for the Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Tijirit Project in Mauritania – March 9, 2018

Tijirit Project NI 43-101 Technical Report with Resource Estimate Update – January 19, 2018

Location

The project is located in northwestern Mauritania, some 275 kilometers north of the capital Nouakchott, and 25 kilometers southeast of the Tasiast Gold Mine (+15 M oz Au).

Access

Year-round access to the Tijirit project is assured from Nouakchott by a paved road that runs over 200 kilometers north. From there, a dirt road runs 105 kilometers northeast along the Akchar dune bar.

Surface area

The Tijirit mining permit covers 156 km².

Tijirit Location

Project Geology

Tijirit_Geology

The Tijirit property is located in the southwestern Reguibat shield in ca. 3.0 Gy Archean granite greenstone terrain of the Aouéouat Belt and is part of the Sebkhet Nich volcano-sedimentary (“v-s”) sequences.

The project is underlain by NNE-trending and regionally folded ultramafic, mafic to intermediate volcanic rocks interstratified with various metasedimentary units, banded iron formations, meta-igneous units, and quartz-feldspar porphyries of various thickness.

The NNE-trending contacts are locally faulted and sheared related to major NNE-trending faults along. The v-s sequences are in contact with syntectonic tonalitic and porphyritic quartz-feldspar granitoids. It is bordered by quartz-feldspar basement orthogneisses to the south, in contact with porphyritic granitoids to the west and intruded by a late-tectonic felsic granitoid to the northeast. The property shows a large coverage of regolith, sand, residual gravelly soil, and laterite ferricrete remnants.

Mineralization

Gold mineralization at Tijirit is structurally controlled concentrating along local faults and shear zones spatially associated with lithological contacts between iron formations, various metasedimentary sequences, and intermediate and mafic metavolcanic and meta-igneous rocks. Gold is locally visible, mostly as native hydrothermal grains within quartz carbonate veins, silicified zones within sheared metabasites, associated with sulphides in metasediments or within quartz veins and alteration halos proximal to meta-igneous rocks.

At present, multiple styles of gold mineralization have been identified at Tijirit, all of which are structurally controlled and are not constrained to BIF only. However, iron-rich lithologies such as BIF still likely played a vital role in gold-distribution at camp-scale.

The Eleonore zone is characterised by at least four en-échelon, high-grade gold deposits (Eleonore South, Central, North and East) elongated along a major NNE-structural corridor in which NE-SW splay appears to play an important role.

Exploration

A 15,000-meter drill exploration program has been established that includes 5,000m of diamond drill infill and 10,000m of exploration drilling. The infill program will be dedicated to converting inferred resources into measured and indicated resources for the Tijirit feasibility study, which is due for completion in the first quarter of 2022. The exploration drilling will focus on expanding the mineral resources statement.

2021 Exploration Program on Eleonore