CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – Tietto Minerals, an emerging mining company in Côte d’Ivoire, has won the 2020 ‘Investment Battlefield’ competition at the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town.

MD Mark Strizek impressed the judges with his entry, titled 'Fast-tracking the development of the Abujar Gold Project'.

The project is located about 30 km from the major regional city of Daloa in central western Côte d’Ivoire and the current resource stands at 45.5-million tonnes, at 1.5 g/t gold for 2.15-million ounces of contained gold.

Four company-owned rigs are currently undertaking a 50 000 m drilling programme targeting further growth.

Commenting on his win, Strizek acknowledged the strength of the competition and said it would give Tietto a chance to raise its profile and gain new investors and shareholders. As the winner, Tietto will receive a free exhibition stand and tickets to the Investing in African Mining Indaba 2021, a speaking slot at the 2021 event and various other profile-raising opportunities.

Arc Minerals, represented by FD Remy Welschinger, claimed second place.

Eco Graf, represented by MD Andrew Spinks, and Roscan Gold, represented by its president and CEO Nana Bompeh Sangmuah, also made it into the final round.

Any emerging mining company with projects in Africa and with a market cap of $50-million or below is eligible to apply for the Investment Battlefield competition.  

Successful applicants were grouped according to commodity and lifecycle stage in an initial screening. They were then invited to give a five-minute pitch of their projects to the investor judges. Judges then gave ten minutes of valuable feedback.

A series of knockout rounds gradually reduced the contenders until an ultimate winner was identified.

This year an actual boxing ring in the main exhibition area at the Investing in African Mining Indaba was set up as the stage for the contenders.

Judges were selected from prominent investment organisations.

This year, the final battle between junior miners was judged by Investec Asset Management portfolio manager George Cheveley, Public Investment Corporation sector specialist for mining Heidi Sternberg, Traxys Projects MD Erez Ichilov and Eurasian Resources Group corporate development head Jonathan Cordero.