Randgold Resources' Tongon Mine Pours First Gold

Randgold Resources Ltd. announced that their Tongon gold mine is pouring the first gold. Randgold Resources Ltd. is listed on the NASDAQ:GOLD (LSE Trading Symbol: RRS, Nasdaq Trading Symbol: GOLD)

The Tongon mine in the Cote d'Ivoire officially poured its first bar of gold on November 8, 2010. The ceremony was attended by government representatives and other dignitaries.

The Chief Executive, Dr Mark Bristow, said, that Randgold Resources plans to shorten the five-year intervals for opening new mines in Africa, based on a report in miningweekly. They continue to report, that the first stream of the processing plant was commissioned on schedule at the end of September and that second stream of the plant would be commissioned by December, after which the crushing circuit would be completed, allowing the mine to start treating sulphides by the first quarter of next year.

The throughput rate of the plant, once all streams are completed, will be 300,000 tons of ore per month.

Randgold Resources' general manager of operations for West Africa, Samba Toure, said the commissioning of the mine on time was a significant achievement for the company's development team."Building a mine in a remote area such as this is always very challenging, and in the case of Tongon we also had to deal with the distraction of the political dynamics around the Ivorian presidential election during the crucial final stage. The team took this in its stride, however, and we still managed to bring the mine in on schedule," he said.

More information on Tongon can be found here. Rangold is by the way an excellent way to participate in the current gold boom. The company has cash, makes money and is sitting on a lot of gold. With about 7,000 employees, GOLD does not seem like a windy operation. Main competitors of GOLD are, ABX, GFI and IAG

While buying physical gold, like gold coins, is considered safer, buying gold stocks can be very profitable.

Here is a video about Randgold's Tongon mine on the Ivory Coast.

Zacks reported today:
"Randgold Resources (NASDAQ:GOLD) traded in a range yesterday that spanned from a low of $95.93 to a high of $98.35. Yesterday, the shares gained 1.10%, which took the trading range above the 3-day high of $98.00 on volume of 546,000 shares."