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West Africa’s vast mineral endowment and faster mine development timelines make the region essential for precious metals producers willing to accept greater geopolitical risk, Fortuna Mining CEO Jorge Ganoza says.
Countries in the region produce more gold collectively than China, underscoring the scale of a region where Fortuna operates two mines, with another two in Latin America.
“We believe that if you want to be a force in precious metals you have to be in West Africa. There is higher geopolitical risk in West Africa, but we play in these regions by choice,” Ganoza told host Adrian Pocobelli on the Northern Miner podcast.
“But it’s not because we are risk junkies. The question is we’re taking higher geopolitical risk, but what are we asking in return? And the answer is the mineral endowment and how you can permit and develop your mines at a speed that no other jurisdiction offers,” he said.
“We are by design set up to operate in these types of environments. We have the expertise and the right approach to addressing the issues and we are quick to get out of places where we believe the risk/reward is not there.”
The company applies the same risk-reward calculation across Latin America and West Africa, shifting capital as investment conditions change.
“Within our regions of choice — Latin America and West Africa — we’ll be tactical and try to be as smart as we can regarding where we deploy capital,” Ganoza said. “Things change, investment, climate changes in these places. So we also manage the risk by having a diversified portfolio in the different jurisdictions within the regions.”
Operational risks
At Fortuna’s newly acquired Bambadji gold project, Ganoza sees some of the most pressing development risks coming from competition for skilled workers and equipment rather than security concerns.
Fortuna acquired Bambadji from Barrick Mining and IAMGOLD, adding another project to its West African portfolio as miners compete for equipment and contractors amid a rush to build and expand operations.
The industry is also dealing with the lack of power generators that are in high demand, especially for AI technologies.
“The most critical equipment were power generators. And that’s of course not driven by the mining industry, it’s driven by the data centers,” he said. “There is tremendous pressure on power generators from the expansion of the data centers around the world. So we had to place those orders very early.”
Higher spending alone cannot guarantee priority from suppliers when much larger customers are competing for the same equipment, he said.
“No matter how much you want to pay, they’re going to take care of the bigger client first,” he said. “We’ve been moving early for several months now, placing a lot of these orders, advancing the work.”
That means Fortuna is committing capital before receiving the exploitation permit needed to move Bambadji toward development.
“We are putting money at risk, purchasing equipment without having made the final investment decision yet because we’re waiting for the exploitation permit.”
Listen to the full episode here:
