JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - Construction of the two-million ton a year processing plant at Australian exploration company Adamus Resources' Salman deposit, in Ghana, would start at the end of the year, with the first gold pour scheduled for the end of 2010. Adamus MD Mark Bojanjac told delegates at the Paydirt 2009 Africa DownUnder Conference, in Perth, on Friday, that the company had placed an order for a semi-autogenous grinding mill for the $85-million to $90-million deposit, which was situated within the Southern Ashanti gold project. He said that the impact of the global financial crisis on the resources sector meant that the mill could be delivered in half the time and at a cost reduction of 20%. "We are anticipating mill delivery within 45 to 50 weeks, half of the around 100 weeks we had to work around in preliminary planning last year," he noted. Adamus had initially planned for a 20-month commissioning period, but said that this could now be done in a "significantly shorter timeframe", as there was currently a pool of talent available for mining that was not there 12 months ago. The final tender submissions for the construction of the plant were due within two weeks, said Bojanjic. Salman had an expanding mineral resource base of 2,1-million ounces with forward exploration drilling targeting in excess of five-million ounces to expand on the mine's initial ten-year life-of-mine schedule. Cash costs in the first two years of mining and processing have been estimated at $370/oz, rising to $425/oz over the life-of-mine, as easily accessible higher-grade resources are exhausted. Adamus was targeting further deeper drilling as the current resource estimates had been based on mineralisation at less than 150-m depth but with the ore body open at depth. Source: http://www.miningweekly.com/article/adamus-moves-step-closer-to-first-gold-production-in-ghana-2009-09-04