Randgold Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow, speaking Friday at a news conference in Abidjan, said progress on a major civil program to build a process plant is moving ahead.

Additionally, mechanical work on a carbon-in-leach tank assembly has begun and the first phase of an earthen dam is complete. The dam will have a capacity of 840 million cubic feet and will supply all water needed in the mine's operation.

Testing at Tongon, about 375 miles north of Abidjan, indicates a deposit of 3 million ounces of gold, giving the find a value of more than $2.8 billion at current prices. Randgold said capital costs of developing the mine will be $280 million.

"Continuing exploration is focused on expanding its resource base further," Bristow said of Tongon. "Together with our other holdings in the country, it gives us a strong foothold in the Ivory Coast, a highly prospective region that boasts one of the best infrastructures in West Africa and is rapidly returning to normality."

The last part of the comment refers to the unrest of the last 10 years that began with a coup and has included at least one other attempt at a government overthrow. A plan for a unity government was reached in January 2003, but the country was still unstable.

Another armed rebellion kept the Ivory Coast on edge until another peace deal was reached in November 2007. Since then, under President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Guillaume Soro the country has been mostly peaceful.

The potential at Tongon kept Randgold interested in doing business with Abidjan, and Bristow said the delivery of product next year represented "the triumph of patience and perseverance over considerable adversity," a Randgold release stated.

"Tongon was, in fact, one of our early discoveries and it was in line for development before our Loulo complex in Mali, which has now been in production for several years," Bristow said.

"The intervention of a period of civil unrest forced us to delay it, but throughout that trying time we never lost confidence in the project or the country. We maintained our presence there, stayed in touch with the various authorities and monitored the situation closely. Our experience in managing Africa's often dynamic environments stood us in good stead in these circumstances, and last year we could see that the time was right to move ahead with the project."

Randgold Resources, which refers to itself as "an African-focused gold mining and exploration business," has its headquarters in England. In addition to mining interests in the Ivory Coast, the company works a 7.5 million-ounce deposit in southern Mali and a more than 7 million-ounce find in western Mali.

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