Geita, Tanzania

Geita, one of AngloGold Ashanti’s flagship mines, is located in north-western Tanzania, in the Lake Victoria goldfields of the Mwanza region, about 120km from Mwanza and 4km west of the town of Geita.

Ownership

100%

Mineral Reserve

3.33Moz
of gold

Gold production

485koz

All-in sustaining costs

$1,403/oz

Capital expenditure

$191m

Workforce

6,839

Overview and locality

Geita is wholly owned by AngloGold Ashanti. 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 AngloGold Ashanti.
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.