News

January 28, 2009

GMA Resources Gets Its Act Together Down On The Amesmessa Gold Project In Algeria

By Rob Davies

Normally suppliers are keen to make sure that consumers get their products as soon they want them and as often as they want them. But when that supplier is a state owned entity, normal commercial rules don’t necessarily apply. And when we’re talking about explosives in a country like Algeria, riven as it has been for decades by internal strife and violent conflict, normal commercial rules almost always give way to political considerations. For a long time gold miners in Northern Ireland faced similar issues. But without something to blow up the rock, not much happens in a hard rock mine. And with limited supplies of explosives, you can only do a limited amount of mining.

We’re now at the nub of what’s been holding up work at the Amesmessa mine in southern Algeria. Long-suffering owner, GMA Resources has been experiencing slow and irregular deliveries of explosives to the mine, and this slow drip, drip of the blasting stuff has cut production down to well below the 1,700 tonnes per day that the plant is designed to handle. But things are changing, and an increasing supply of explosives over the last three months has allowed production slowly to increase. The...