Randgold beats the odds to deliver Congo’s Kibali mine
Gold producer seeks new sites to replicate success
London — Randgold Resources had to haul heavy equipment more than 1,600km to build the roads and hydropower plants needed to construct its Kibali gold mine, the biggest in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The sprawling facility in a remote corner of a country the size of Western Europe is a hi-tech operation. In one tunnel deep underground, a $1.3m, 68-tonne remote-controlled digger heaves ore out of a cavernous blast hole. The ventilation system hums as 50-tonne loads are slowly humped along the 3km track back to the surface. The best-performing gold miner of the past decade, Randgold has built its success on getting complicated projects like Kibali into production on time and within budget. It’s the third major mine the company has brought on stream in five years, and it has indeed been a gold mine: it accounts for about a fifth of the company’s production, which tripled between 2010 and 2015 as revenue doubled to more than $1bn. Now, with Kibali nearing full production and no ne...
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