AGA Mineração, Brazil

Our AGA Mineração operation, situated in the state of Minas Gerais, comprises the Cuiabá and Córrego do Sítio (CdS) mining complexes. The CdS complex was placed on care and maintenance in August 2023.

Ownership

100%

Mineral Reserve

1.40Moz
of gold

Gold production

294koz

All-in sustaining costs

$1,807/oz

Capital expenditure

$124m

Workforce

4,887

Overview and locality

The Cuiabá complex includes the Cuiabá and Lamego underground mines and the Cuiabá and Queiroz plants. Ore from the Cuiabá and Lamego mines is processed at the Cuiabá gold plant. The concentrate produced is transported by an aerial ropeway to the Queiroz plant for processing and refining. Total annual capacity of the complete Cuiabá circuit is 1.75Mt.

Operations at the Queiroz metallurgical plant remained suspended while additional engineering and geotechnical work at the related Calcinados TSF is completed. The suspension of waste deposition on the Calcinados TSF in the first quarter of 2023 necessitated a transition to gold-in-concentrate production and the subsequent loss of an estimated 5,000oz of annual production.

Cuiabá has been in operation for over 30 years and Lamego for 10 years. The Cuiabá mine has changed from cut-and-fill to sub-level stoping, increasing production from narrow-vein orebodies and improving rock-engineering controls for support, design and monitoring.

Córrego do Sítio (Cds), in operation since 1989, consists of one open pit mine and one underground mine. CdS was placed on care and maintenance towards the end of August 2023 owing to ongoing and unsustainable losses.

A brief history

Cuiabá

In 1740, artisanal miners carried out the first mining in the area. The Saint John Del Rey Mining Company Ltd acquired the mine in 1834. Exploration and development resumed in 1977, culminating in the reopening of the mine in 1985
In 1996, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Anglo American Group, and in 1999, ownership was transferred to the holding company AngloGold (now AngloGold Ashanti), where it remains

CÓRREGO DO SÍTIO (CdS)

Gold has been intermittently mined in the Santa Barbara and Barão de Cocais region since the 19th century
Modern exploration was undertaken across the CdS area in the 1980s by Morro Velho and São Bento Mineração
A feasibility study for the oxide Mineral Reserve, to be mined by open pit and treated in a heap leach plant, was approved in 1987
The CdS open pit operations started in the 1990s, with the first phase of production between 1990 and 1998
In 2002 development of underground exploration drifts began at CdS I and in 2007 the São Bento Mine was acquired from Eldorado Gold Corporation
A feasibility study for the sulphide Mineral Reserve, to be mined underground and treated in a sulphide plant, was concluded in 2010
Implementation followed and the ramp-up was concluded in 2012. In 2011, major renovations to the structure of the São Bento metallurgical plant were completed in 2012
In 2013, the crushing circuit was improved to optimise throughput