With a share price approaching $95, investors have a lot to look forward to from Randgold Resources in 2011.

The company’s improved operational performance at its Loulo mine (Mali) as well as the start of production at its new facility at Tongon in the Côte d’Ivoire, should “spur a significant rise in its fourth-quarter gold production,” Randgold states.

Tongon mine pours first gold

CEO Mark Bristow’s continued message has focused on a promise to create value, and the Tongon start is indicative of further value for shareholders. The new Tongon mine poured its first bar of gold on Monday November 8, and was brought into production despite significant challenges including a presidential election at the end of October.

The election was considered to be a distraction for the largely Ivorian operators, but the team took it “in stride”, and the mine was brought to production on schedule. The focus for Tongon now is to commission the second stream which according to the company should be on line before the end of the year: “We expect to be treating the first sulphides in the first quarter of 2011,” says the company. Full production once the plant has ramped up should be 300,000 tonnes per month.

Continuing efforts to better communities

West and Central Africa are lucrative areas for Randgold, but the company remains committed to sustainable development in operating regions.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, work on the Kibali mine continues to progress with an updated feasibility study by the year’s end. Bristow has said that “Central Africa has embarked on a voyage,” explaining that communities are far more involved in Rangold project development than ever before. As resource development grows for Randgold, the stars are aligning for the people in the DRC. “We’ve had a productive time in [the DRC]—a lot of things have aligned,” he says. “The politics are right, the timing is right and there’s a real desire from the government of the Congo to prove they are reasonable, and that they want capital to flow into the country,” Bristow adds.

He says that the Congo is a very commercial environment to work in, and that although corruption has in the past been rampant, it is not without the direct collaboration of outsiders.

Most importantly, the plan for Randgold is to stick to what they’re best at: creating value for shareholders as well as those in the communities they’re working in. They are creating brick and mortar homes for those that work in the local areas of their projects through community partnerships, which according to Bristow is more than some locals have ever seen before. “What we do today is not going to realize value but it’s going to create the value for the future,” he reasons, speaking with regards to future success of communities. Bristow says that the Congo is really a testament to the company being “an African company that brings African skills.”

“We’re focused on African partnerships and we’ve really been able to test that in the Congo,” he adds. At the Kibali project, there is a Resettlement Action Plan in place, which is quickly gaining pace. A Resettlement Working Group has been working with the company, that represents all interested and affected parties, and land has been acquired.

Continued growth

The company has been able to continue building its new growth platform successfully over the last year. In a recent statement Bristow said: “We are confident that this momentum will be maintained and, with a big improvement in gold production in the fourth quarter, our sights are still firmly set on a 50 per cent increase in our gold output next year. The key drivers of this growth are sustaining the improvement in Loulo’s processing capability while accelerating its underground development, getting the new Tongon mine up and running according to plan and achieving first production from Gounkoto.  Further down the road is the development of Kibali, followed by Massawa and our other exploration projects.”

In conjunction with this success is the success of the company to make sure that the people and structures are in place to “cope efficiently with all aspects of this complex and rapidly expanding business.”

Randgold’s continued growth will be evident through the many company result announcements expected in 2011.

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