Essakane Mine in Burkina Faso Back Online

The Essakane Mine in Burkina Faso has re-commenced operations as IAMGOLD Corp announced that the maintenance crew has restarted the semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill at the mine. The SAG mill restart attempt on Monday had seen the variable frequency drive fail. This had resulted in a temporary blackout in the generating station.

Since the VFD manages the power delivery to the motor of the SAG mill from the generating plant the maintenance team had been focussing in diagnosing what repairs were needed for the VFD. The diagnosis is still underway but the team has put in a backup plan into action which uses the ball mill starter and drive system along with the SAG mill motor.

The throughput of gold using this set up is not yet known as the capacity of the SAG mill once optimized to the current power configuration is still debatable. The company will confirm or revise its annual production guidance after the gold production rate in the given set up is updated. Meanwhile updates in the VFD problem and repairs will be made available as they are known.