(Kitco News) - Barrick’s North Mara gold mine in Tanzania today announced that it had achieved its commitment to bring the operation’s tailings storage facility’s (TSF) pond back within its permitted design capacity by the end of this year.

According to the company’s statement, Barrick made the commitment to the Tanzanian government when it took over control of the mine in September 2019, at a time when the country’s National Environment Management Council (NEMC) had closed down the TSF, then holding significantly more water than it should.

The company’s chief operating officer for Africa and the Middle East, Willem Jacobs, described the achievement of the target as a huge milestone for North Mara and its team, who had made a “herculean effort to bring the badly neglected TSF into line with international best practice as well as Barrick’s own tailings management standards.”

Barrick said it spent over $65 million on the project, increasing the water treatment plant’s capacity 16-fold from 2.5 million litres per day to 40 million litres per day. The company noted that the addition of a brine treatment plant has reduced the volume of salts in the effluent water, enabling it to be stored safely.

The North Mara gold mine is located in north-west Tanzania in the Tarime district of the Mara region. It is around 100 kilometres east of Lake Victoria and 20 kilometres south of the Kenyan border.

North Mara started commercial production in 2002. The mine is a combined open pit and underground operation from two deposits, Gokona (underground) and Nyabirama (open pit). The process plant has the capacity to process an average of 8,000 tonnes of ore per day. North Mara produced 261,000 ounces of gold in 2020 at all-in sustaining costs of $929/ounce. - Vladimir Basov, Kitco News