Société des Mines d’Ity.*

When the Sawiris family bought La Mancha in 2012, Société des Mines d’Ity (“SMI”) was a junior gold mine in Côte d’Ivoire producing 40 koz of gold through a heap leach processing plant.

Gold was first poured by the French Geological Survey in 1991, who then sold the mine to Normandy in 1997 before it was purchased by Areva Mining in 2000. Between 2012 and 2015, La Mancha operated the mine and doubled the production from 40 to 80 koz and decreased the All-In-Sustaining-Costs from US$1,100/oz to US$700/oz, whilst increasing resources from 500 to 4,000 koz.

Société des Mines d’Ity was vended into Endeavour Mining in 2015 against a 30% stake in the company. Five years later, Endeavour built a 5 Mtpa CIL processing plant with a production capacity of c.250koz, to process the more than 2,700 koz of reserves.