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Greenfield projects, United States
In the United States, our greenfield concessions – which include the adjacent North Bullfrog and Expanded Silicon projects – are in the Beatty District in southern Nevada. The project area includes the North Bullfrog, Silicon, Mother Lode, Merlin and Sterling deposits.
Project ownership
100%
Mineral Resource
![Stacked rocks [icon]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/icon-zen-rocks.svg){kind=icon}
of gold
Mineral Reserve
of gold
Overview and Locality
North Bullfrog
The Board approved the North Bullfrog feasibility study, subject to the receipt of the necessary permits and approvals. Construction is contingent on the requisite permitting which is expected in H1 2025.
Completed in 2023, the North Bullfrog project feasibility study proposes an open-pit mining alternative employing both gravity milling and heap leaching for ore processing. Local, state and federal permitting processes are underway and environmental baseline studies are being reviewed by the agencies for completeness.
The project, expected to be the first of the Nevada operations to enter production, is slated to generate an internal rate of return (IRR*) of 13%, assuming a gold price of $1,600/oz. At a gold price of $1,900/oz, the IRR* is estimated at 25%. Regulatory approvals are expected during Q1 of 2025 and first production at the end of 2025.
North Bullfrog is currently expected to produce an average 117,000oz during the first five full years and an average of 62,000oz a year over its life, currently anticipated to be 13 years. All-in sustaining costs are anticipated at $882/oz over the first five full years and $854/oz over the life of the mine. Initial project capital is expected to be $369m.
Development of North Bullfrog will allow AngloGold Ashanti to build a cohesive project development team and improve understanding of the permitting and project construction process in Nevada.
Exploration and studies are ongoing with regulatory approval for the North Bullfrog project anticipated in the first half of 2025.
Merlin deposit (Expanded Silicon Project)
The Merlin deposit, an exploration stage property, together with the Silicon deposit, comprises the Expanded Silicon Project.
A successful Mineral Resource conversion drilling programme conducted at Merlin during the second half of the year yielded encouraging results which were the basis of an initial assessment completed by year end. With the successful completion and approval of this concept study a 9.1Moz gold Inferred Mineral Resource for Merlin was declared at an average grade of 0.99g/t confirming another large discovery contiguous to Silicon.
At 31 December 2023, the Silicon and Merlin deposits together had a gold Measured and Indicated Mineral Resource of 3.4Moz and a gold Inferred Mineral Resource of 9.9Moz.
