| Geita Gold Mine | |
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Geita Gold Mine
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| Location | Geita |
| Region | Mwanza |
| Country | Tanzania |
| Owner | |
| Company | AngloGold Ashanti |
| Website | AngloGold Ashanti website |
| JSE | ANG |
| Production | |
| Financial year | 2009 |
| Ounces of Gold | 272,000 |
| History | |
| Opened | 2000 |
The Geita Gold Mine is an open pit gold mine located in the Geita District of the Mwanza Region of Tanzania. It is operated by AngloGold Ashanti.[1]
In 2008, the mine accounted for 6% of the company's overall annual gold production and employed close to 3,200 people.[1]
Contents |
Gold mining in Tanzania in modern times dates back to the German colonial period, beginning with gold discoveries near Lake Victoria in 1894. The first gold mine in what was then Tanganyika, the Sekenke Mine, began operation in 1909, and gold mining in Tanzania experienced a boom between 1930 and World War II. By 1967, gold production in the country had dropped to insignificance but was revived in the mid-1970s, when the gold price rose once more. In the late 1990s, foreign mining companies started investing in the exploration and development of gold deposits in Tanzania, leading to the opening of a number of new mines.[2]
The Geita mine commenced production in 2000, initially as a joint venture of AngloGold and Ashanti. With the merger of the two companies in 2004, the mine became fully owned by AngloGold Ashanti.[1] The mine was inaugurated by then-Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, who pledged more incentives for investments in the sector. But the opening of the mine also raised fears within environmentalists from Tanzania and Uganda that ist closeness to Lake Victoria, 20 kilometres away, could cause further environmental damage to the already affected water system.[3] Unlike the North Mara Gold Mine, where a spill caused extremely high levels of arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, copper, chrome, nickel and zinc at the area around, at Geita the situation was found to be less acute. But at Geita, too, higher than natural levels of arsenic and other metals in sediments were found.[4]
The mine started to experience production difficulties from 2007 onwards, starting with the failure of the highwall in the Nyankanga open pit, continued with some significant breakdowns of major mining equipment and in the process plant. Geita continued to under perform in 2009, producing 272,000 ounces of gold for the year, 43,000 short of the anticipated 315,000 ounces.[1]
In March 2010, a gang of robbers stormed into the mine, tied up a security guard, seized his gun and stole 14 boxes of explosives. The police later managed to arrest one of the gang members and retrieved 12 of the 14 boxes but the incident raised questions in regards to the security at the mine.[5]
Production figures of the recent past were:
| Year | Production | Grade | Cost per ounce |
| 2003 [6] | 661,000 ounces | 3.60 g/t | US$ 183 |
| 2004 [6] | 570,000 ounces | 3.74 g/t | US$ 250 |
| 2005 [6] | 613,000 ounces | 3.14 g/t | US$ 298 |
| 2006 [7] | 308,000 ounces | 1.68 g/t | US$ 497 |
| 2007 [8] | 327,000 ounces | 2.01 g/t | US$ 452 |
| 2008 [8] | 264,000 ounces | 1.92 g/t | US$ 728 |
| 2009 [8] | 272,000 ounces | 1.89 g/t | US$ 954 |
| 2010 |
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