Golden Star Resources Limited says the agreement with Future Global Resources to trade off 90 percent interest in the Bogoso-Prestea Gold Mine will not affect jobs.
The Mine employs about 600 directly and 600 others indirectly.
The President and Chief Executive Officer of Golden Star, Andrew Wray, who gave the assurance, says the new owner will not only maintain the existing workforce to ensure continuity in its operations, but will also ensure environmental sustainability.
The agreement between Golden Star Resources and Future Global Resources, demands that an initial purchase price of $55 million shall be paid with a further contingent component of up to US$40 million staged payments to ensure Future Global Resources focuses investment capacity on the asset itself, while providing Golden Star with exposure to its long-term growth potential.
Golden Star however says operations will continue at the Prestea underground operation, which includes the use of alimak mining on 24 Level and long hole open stooping mining activities on the newly developed 17 Level.
The sale, according to the company, strengthens Golden Star’s balance sheet and allows them to accelerate the growth and development of the large resource base at the Wassa Mine, and increase exploration activities in the wider Wassa-HBB project area.
Following the satisfaction of the closing conditions in the agreement, including obtaining the required government approvals, the transaction is expected to be complete not later than September 30, 2020.
Andrew Wray, President and Chief Executive Officer of Golden Star, says the sale agreement brings fresh focus and investment capacity to the asset, while enabling them to concentrate their financial and technical resources on accelerating the delivery of value from Wassa, as it continues to develop into a large-scale, long-life and cash generative underground mine.
He adds that the agreement is positive for Future Global Resources and Golden Star and its employees, as well as the host communities and Ghana in general. He says there will be no job losses as Future Global Resources has agreed to maintain the workforce.
“From the conversations we have had from the plans that Future Global Resources has, they don’t have the intention to make cuts. In fact, what they said to me was that, we want to look at how we can grow this asset and it is hard to do that without people. So, they want to retain the mining skills in the business and then use those to help the business continue with the plan that we have for it,” he said.
On environmental challenges and sustainability, Mr. Andrew Wray says FGR and its parent company, Blue International Holdings, are committed to sustaining the gains made.
“For us as a business, we have a real focus on our environmental liabilities and we are fully complaint to all of those. I mentioned that we are concerned about rehabilitating the ground that has been disturbed from mining and this is one of the key approaches to the business of FGR and Blue International and they fully understand. As with any new owner, you take on those commitments and over time, we are gradually rehabilitating the area. We spend some money each year to do that,” he stated.
CBN
