WE are Ghana Focused- Largest Gold Producer in West Africa
The West African country of Ghana has an extensive history of gold production and local gold was a feature in the Sahara trade routes for several thousand years. It is believed that the gold of ancient Rome and Egypt was produced in part from Ghana. This knowledge led the Portuguese to seek a sailing route from Europe to West Africa in 1471 (Griffis, et al, 2002).
Until British colonialists discovered gold and developed mines in the late 1800s, Ghana produced gold through artisanal means. The largest and most extensive of these is Ashanti Goldfield's Obuasi Mine which has recorded production exceeding 30M oz of Au during the 113 years of continuous production. In the last 20 plus years, Ghana has undergone a resurgence of exploration activity with several major international mining companies committing significant resources to operations in the country:
AngloGold Ashanti - operates two producing mines: Obuasi and Iduapriem
Gold Fields - operates the Tarkwa and Damang mines
Golden Star Resources - operates the Bogoso/Prestea and Wassa mines
Noble Minerals - operates the Bibiani mine
Newmont started operations at the Ahafo mine in 2006 and is permitting the Akyem project
Ghana is a mining friendly country and features two mining colleges and has a large workforce trained in the disciplines of geology, exploration methods and mining engineering. Ghana currently produces approximately 3M oz of gold per year, which places it as Africa's second largest gold producer after South Africa.
Ghana is politically stable with a parliamentary system yet also honours an historic chief system. It is a modern developing country with strong economic ties in West Africa as well as with Europe and North America. It is the world's second largest cocoa producer and is emerging as an oil-producing nation through newly discovered offshore fields.
PMI Gold owns the tenements upon which four mines previously operated on 85 kms of Ghana's major gold belts -- the Asankrangwa and Ashanti -- located near the centre of an area which has nearly 200 million ounces of historical production and current gold resources. Multiple opportunities for additional discoveries on the 70 km long Ashanti II gold project are also possible.
At Obotan, we recently announced a maiden gold resource (156,000 oz @ 1.59 g/t Au Indicated; 1,053,000 oz @ 2.1 g/t Au Inferred) which adds to near 1 million ounces of resources at our Kubi gold project (604,000 oz @ 3.66 g/t Indicated; 315,000 oz @ 1.88 g/t Au Inferred)
In 2010, a $7 million capital raising and co-listing on the ASX which raised $27.5 million was completed, increasing our liquidity with listings on three continents: Canada, Europe and Australia, exposing us to a larger investor base.
We have highly experienced corporate mining and exploration teams with in- country expertise.
PMI Gold continues to seek projects with near term production and organic growth from cash flow. In addition, we have a low market capitalization -- an attractive entry point -- as well as a strong private shareholder base.
