News

May 06, 2009

GMA Resources Is Back On Track And Ramping Up Gold Production At Amesmessa In Algeria

By Alastair Ford

It’s not always been an easy proposition for GMA Resources, working on the ground in Algeria. Just when the global economy was really starting to wobble and the case for investing in gold was looking more compelling than ever, the Algerian army suddenly came over all hesitant about supplying GMA with the explosives needed for serious work to get underway at the company’s Amesmessa gold project in the south of the country. You can understand the Algerians being touchy about the issue of explosives – they have one of the nastiest long-term Islamic insurgencies in the world to contend with out there. But on the other hand, most of the fighting and killing goes on in the north of the country, where all the Mediterranean-facing infrastructure and the majority of the country’s wealth is. Down south, where Amesmessa is, not so far from the Malian border, there aren’t many people around at all. In fact there isn’t much of anything to speak of – hence a major part of GMA’s contribution to welfare of the locals has been the installation and maintenance of watering stations for the nomads that are prone to wander by, with their herds. One thing there is a fair amount of, though, is hard rock. And having the kybosh put on your explosives when you’re trying to mine through hard rock is no fun at all.

Not only is it frustrating, it’s also costly. Doug Perkins reckons the delay in getting explosives down to Amesmessa cost GMA something of the order of US$20 million in revenue. It wasn’t a total shut down, he says, as the company was able to scratch around for free digging ore from a two metre deep oxide zone at the surface at Amesmessa. It also gave the company time to look around at the potential for exploration it the locality, and on that Doug is extremely positive. But in terms of overall...