B2Gold’s Wolfshag production to extend until 2027

20 January, 2025

By: Eric Mhunduru

B2Gold Namibia said exploration results indicate the potential to extend underground production at Wolfshag in 2027.

The country manager said this will supplement the processing operations into 2032 when economically viable stockpiles are forecast to be exhausted.

Roos said capital expenditures in 2025 at the Otjikoto mine are expected to total US$39 million, a slight increase from the total estimated capital expenditures in 2024.

“We are set to produce between 165,000 and 185,000 ounces of gold in 2025. In June 2024, we released the initial inferred resource on the antelope zone. So, this is a new gold discovery that we have been working on over the past two years,” said Roos.

He said the exploration department has put in a significant amount of effort to bring that resource to its current stage.

“We announced a resource of around 390,000 ounces and at that point we said that we would start off with a preliminary economic assessment on that zone.

So, for 2025 the company has put aside US$10 million to advance that study. The preliminary economic assessment we will be putting out in the first quarter of 2025.

We really want to use those funds to sort of start looking at long lead items, construction on site, early works to set us up when the results are positive that we can start development earlier,” said Roos.

Roos said the retrenchment process is expected to be concluded by the end of this year, with at least 300 permanent employees leaving the company.

“The retrenchment process has been going according to plan. It is of course a very delicate situation. It is a situation where we are dealing with people’s lives.

We are on track with our retrenchments, and we look forward to being completely through the process by the end of Q3 2025, at which point our open pit mine will have been exhausted.

We are not mining open pits anymore, and we will sort of have a new labour force which will take us into the underground mining phase of the Otjikoto mine.

Written by: Hertha

#NewsOnOne #NewsUpdate #OneAfrica B2Gold Mine futuremedianews President of the Chamber of Mines of Namibia