Endeavour 15Moz exploration push: discovery cost and resource upside for mine planners
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Endeavour Mining plans to discover 12–15Moz of new resources between 2026 and 2030 on a $540 million budget, targeting a discovery cost below $40/oz after delivering 20.7Moz at under $25/oz from 2016–2025. The company will test about 50 near-mine targets across 7,000km² in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Burkina Faso, with Houndé and Sabodala-Massawa each aiming for 1.5–2Moz and Ity, Lafigué, Assafou and Mana together adding up to 4.5–5Moz. Endeavour also invested £1.8 million in East Star Resources to back gold-copper exploration in Kazakhstan.
Technical Brief
- Annual exploration outlay is expected to exceed $100 million through to at least 2030.
- Greenfield work is planned to deliver ~6Moz, including 2–3 prospects capable of becoming cornerstone assets.
- Houndé (Burkina Faso) previously added 2.8Moz in 2016–2025; Sabodala-Massawa (Senegal) added 1.7Moz.
- Ity, Lafigué and Assafou (Côte d’Ivoire) collectively delivered 13.2Moz in 2016–2025, now targeting lower incremental additions.
- Mana (Burkina Faso) increased its contribution target to 0.5Moz, up from 0.3Moz in the prior campaign.
- Around 50 brownfield targets are being drilled across 7,000km² in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Burkina Faso.
- Brownfield focus is explicitly to replace mined ounces, maintain head grades and tighten drill-ready project pipelines.
- £1.8 million strategic investment in East Star Resources includes a convertible loan note for Kazakhstan gold–copper exploration.
- Analysts frame Endeavour’s low-cost Tier 1 discovery track record as differentiated in a market short of new deposits.
Our Take
Endeavour Mining’s 12–15Moz gold discovery target to 2030 sits at the upper end of what our database shows for single-operator exploration pipelines in Africa, signalling that Houndé, Sabodala-Massawa, Ity, Lafigué and Assafou are being positioned as a long-life cluster rather than a sequence of standalone mines.
The planned lift in exploration spend to at least USD 100 million per year in Burkina Faso, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire contrasts with several other Africa-tagged gold stories in our coverage where operators are trimming budgets in higher-risk jurisdictions, suggesting Endeavour is doubling down on districts where it already has infrastructure and social licence.
With 50 near-mine targets being tested and a stated focus on gold alongside copper and rare earths, this programme could also underpin future by-product credits at existing West African plants, which in our database has been a key lever for keeping all-in sustaining costs competitive at mature gold operations.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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