JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – TSX-listed Continental Gold will focus on completing detail engineering and finalising major mill and infrastructure procurement in the year ahead, to advance its Buriticá project, in Colombia, to its first gold pour in 2020.

“We want to be well advanced with both earthworks and concrete work; start plant equipment mechanical and piping installations; begin required site infrastructure construction, including warehouse, mine rescue, change house, assay lab and ancillary buildings; and start tailings storage facilities construction and aerial tramway installation to be used for delivering filtered tailing to the paste plant,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

It would further seek to advance underground mine development initiatives, including Yaraguá and Veta Sur ramps, stope definition drilling, and sublevel development in initial production areas; start construction of the 32 km 110 kV transmission line to provide power from the national grid; and continue with infill drilling into broad mineralised zones (BMZ) and for increasing drill density to upgrade tonnes and ounces in the current mineral resource into higher confidence categories.

Continental would also focus on step-out drilling extensions to identify potential resource along strike and down dip and exploration drilling on newly identified greenfield targets.

“Major milestones were reached during 2017 on the advancement of our Buriticá project. After receiving our environmental permit in late 2016, we secured $275-million of project debt financing with Red Kite, a strategic investment of $109-million from Newmont and initiated construction of the largest gold mine in Colombia.

“Underground development is advancing on three separate headings and earthworks in the Higabra Valley is moving rapidly towards first major concrete pour in the coming weeks.

“We are also excited to have resumed drilling at the Buriticá project after a multiyear hiatus and look forward to both improving the mineral resource estimate with definition and infill drilling and testing newly generated brownfield and greenfield targets with a goal of identifying a new discovery in 2018,” said CEO Ari Sussman.