Asante Provides Operations and Corporate Update

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 21, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Asante Gold Corporation (CSE:ASE | GSE:ASG | FRANKFURT:1A9 | U.S.OTC:ASGOF) (“Asante” or the “Company”) is pleased to provide an update on its operations and corporate activities.

Operations Update – Bibiani Mine

The Bibiani process and mine facilities are operating on a 24 hour per day basis with throughput of approximately 3.0M tonnes per year. Completion of critical plant upgrades and other capital initiatives, as outlined below, are expected to enable material increases in throughput, gold recovery and production levels with a commensurate decrease in all-in sustaining costs per ounce in Q4 2023. The Company continues to advance near-term funding initiatives to provide the required capital to achieve these initiatives.

Recent achievements and planned initiatives at Bibiani include:

• Exploration of near mine targets proved to be successful with the Grasshopper satellite pit coming into production in Q2 2023. At the South Russel deposit, a starter pit is planned to be developed during Q4 with delivery of mineralized material expected to occur by January 2024;
• The gravity plant was upgraded prior to start of production in July 2022 and continues operation achieving 25 – 35% gold recovery, as planned. The installation of a scalping screen is planned to increase gravity gold recovery by 5% with expected completion in late October 2023;
• The oxygen plant, installed on schedule, has been providing oxygen to the process plant from September 2023. Installation of a Mach-reactor to increase oxygen utilization will be completed this week;
• A pebble crusher has been ordered and will be installed in the coming months to increase process plant throughput capacity from 3.0 million to 3.4 million tonnes per year;
• The Sulphide Recovery Plant long lead items are expected to ship in September 2023. Construction of the plant is planned to be five months from the time of delivery to site. When in operation, the Sulphide Recovery Plant is expected to improve gold recovery to over 90%;
• Construction of the planned detour road is nearly complete allowing the highway to be cut and providing access to higher grade mineralized material from the main pit by early 2024; and
• Other cost saving and productivity improvement initiatives have started with implementation planned over the coming months.