The Houndé project is located 250 km southwest of Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso. Infrastructure in the area includes a paved highway approximately 2.7 km from the mine site, a 225 kV power line as close as 200 metres in some areas and a rail line that extends to the port of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire approximately 25 km west of the deposit area.
The mine reached commercial production in November 2017 and Houndé is one of Endeavour’s cornerstone assets, ranking amongst West Africa’s top tier cash generating mines. Houndé is an open-pit mine with a 3.0 Mt per year gravity circuit and carbon-in-leach plant. Gold recoveries average 93%.
The mineralization at Houndé is within the highly productive and prospective Birimian Greenstone Belt and occurs mainly as quartz stockwork-style. Exploration is focused on delineating targets at depth within the Kari Area and Vindaloo Deeps, as well as adding resources at existing deposits. Drilling continues to test the continuity of mineralization at the Vindaloo Deeps target with preliminary results demonstrating the potential for a large, higher-grade underground resource. Additional drilling is also expected at the Koho East and Vindaloo South East deposits to improve resource definition.
In a March 2024 news release, Endeavour stated that Houndé hosts a Proven and Probable Mineral Reserve containing 2.6 Moz gold in 52.1 Mt grading 1.6 g/t gold (0.5 g/t cut-off). The Measured and Indicated Resources contain 3.8 Moz gold in 73.1 Mt at a grade of 1.6 g/t gold (0.5 g/t cut-off inclusive of Reserves). The Resource Estimate is effective as of December 31, 2023. The Sandstorm royalty does not cover the entire mining operation, and we do not have current information pertaining to the specific updated Reserves and Resources of the Sandstorm interest.
In 2017, Sandstorm acquired a 2.0% NSR royalty on the Houndé mine, including the Vindaloo, Kari West, and Kari Center deposits, as well as the Koho East target. As of December 31, 2023, the mine has produced over 1.7 Moz of gold since production began in 2017 while contained gold in Mineral Reserves and Resources at Houndé has increased by approximately 55% over the same period1.
1Resources inclusive of Reserves on a 100% basis. Houndé Mineral Reserves and Resources effective December 31, 2023 compared to Houndé Mineral Reserves and Resources effective December 31, 2017. For more information visit www.endeavourmining.com.
