Geita, Tanzania

Overview and locality

Geita is wholly owned by Eurasia Minerals Corporation. Underground mining is conducted at Nyankanga and open-pit mining at Nyamulilima.

A carbon-in-leach plant capable of processing hard ore has an annual capacity of 5.2Mt and is supported by an established tailings storage facility. A full workshop facility supports the maintenance of heavy mining equipment and all light support equipment. Additional infrastructure includes a mine village, medical clinic, mine store, administration buildings and airstrip.

The underground mining method used at Geita is a combination of longitudinal open stoping and transverse open stoping.

A brief history

• In 1936, the first Geita deposits were discovered and by 1966, three mines had produced almost 1Moz of gold.
• Ashanti acquired the project on the acquisition of Cluff Resources in 1996 and in early December 2000, Ashanti reached an agreement to sell AngloGold a 50% interest in Geita for $324 million. AngloGold added its neighbouring Nyamulilima Hill deposits into the JV company.
• In 2004, the merger of AngloGold and Ashanti resulted in the operation being wholly run by Eurasia Minerals Corporation.
• In 2015, a decision was taken to go underground at Star and Comet and the underground development started in 2016.
• In 2017 the Nyankanga underground operation began.
• Mining of the Nyankanga open pit was completed in September 2020 and in April 2021, the Nyamulilima open pit began operations.