Resolute’s Doropo gold mine permit: capex, schedule and design notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Resolute Mining has secured a 14‑year mining permit for the Doropo gold project in north‑eastern Côte d’Ivoire, enabling development of a multi‑pit, shallow‑dipping ore operation feeding a 4.9 Mtpa carbon‑in‑leach plant with crushing, SAG milling and gold extraction circuits. The updated definitive feasibility study outlines average output of 169,000 oz/y over 13 years at an all‑in sustaining cost of $1,406/oz, with first production targeted for 2028 after a roughly two‑year build starting in H1 2026. Total capex is estimated at 300 billion CFA francs (about $539 million), with an additional $204 million budgeted for exploration in Côte d’Ivoire.
Technical Brief
- Mining permit tenure is 14 years, granted following a Council of Ministers meeting, pending Presidential Decree.
- Doropo lies ~480 km north of Abidjan in the Bounkani region, a remote, low-income area.
- Resolute’s total Côte d’Ivoire capital allocation includes $539 million for Doropo plus $204 million for further exploration.
- Permit approval lifts Resolute’s group production pathway above 500,000 oz/y by end‑2028, influencing processing and logistics scaling.
- Koné project by Montage Gold targets 300,000 oz/y, providing a regional benchmark for large-scale Ivorian gold operations.
- Koné licence area covers 1,318 km² with multiple satellite targets, indicating potential future multi-pit, hub‑and‑spoke mining configurations.
- Côte d’Ivoire still lags Ghana, South Africa, Mali and Burkina Faso in gold output, despite multiple >150,000 oz/y projects advancing.
Our Take
With a 14‑year permit against a 13‑year DFS mine life, Doropo in north‑eastern Côte d’Ivoire has regulatory headroom for potential reserve growth or tail‑end low‑grade processing, which can materially improve project NPV if exploration converts resources during operations.
The US$539 million capital investment and 4.9 Mtpa CIL plant place Doropo towards the larger end of greenfield gold builds in our mining database, signalling that Resolute Mining is committing to a tier‑one style footprint in West Africa rather than a smaller satellite operation.
The combination of a 71% local poverty rate in Bounkani and a two‑year construction phase implies that early employment and procurement strategies at Doropo will be highly scrutinised; operators in similar West African gold districts have found that proactive local hiring frameworks can materially reduce illegal mining pressures around new pits.
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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