Gold mining operation Kinross Tasiast recently officially celebrated the commissioning of a Hitachi EX8000-6 excavator, now the largest mining excavator of its kind in Mauritania – it is the first EX8000 in the country and only the fourth to have been delivered in Africa.
It is in face shovel configuration and weighs more than 800 t, plus is nearly 10 m in height, with a 40 m³ bucket – Kinross Tasiast says it will significantly improve the efficiency of operations thanks to increased loading capacity and optimisation of transport cycles.
Assembled and commissioned in just one month, it says “this project was carried out thanks to the exemplary mobilisation of Kinross Tasiast’s teams, technical partners and service providers, illustrating a high level of coordination, know-how and collaboration. This commissioning marks a new milestone in the development of Kinross Tasiast’s mining capabilities and demonstrates confidence in the potential and future of the site.”
The EX8000 was acquired for Tasiast along with a Caterpillar 995 wheel loader last year. The mine has worked closely with Hitachi distributor for Mauritania, SMT Africa.
At Tasiast, ore and waste rock is mined in 10 m benches by conventional open pit methods primarily from the West Branch pit until May 2024. Mining also started at the Piment pit in May 2024 and the Fennec satellite pit in June 2025. The bench height at West Branch was changed to 15 m benches for Phase 5 of the pit (WB5).
The new EX8000 will work with the Tasiast truck fleet of 47 Caterpillar 793D (220 t), six Hitachi EH4000 (220 t) and two Komatsu HD785 (92 t) units. The haulage fleet up to now has primarily been loaded by six Caterpillar 6060 shovels and two Bucyrus RH340B excavators, with three Caterpillar 994 front-end loaders utilised for rehandling purposes and four Komatsu PC1250s for auxiliary loading of the smaller Komatsu trucks.
In addition, during the expansion of the processing plant to 24,000 t/d, one Caterpillar 6060 shovel and five Hitachi EH4000 haul trucks were added to the primary mobile fleet to support production. Further to the plant expansion, mining at Piment added an additional two Cat 793 and one EH4000 trucks, and Fennec satellite pit mining added eight Caterpillar 777 haul trucks, one Caterpillar 6030 shovel , and one Caterpillar 992 wheel loader.
Blasting techniques, including presplit and buffer hole blasting, are employed to protect the pit walls. Ore is fed directly from the mine and stockpile to the primary crusher. The grinding circuit produces a product size of 80% passing 90 microns which is processed in a conventional carbon-in leach (CIL) circuit to produce gold bullion. Gold recovery averages 93%. Tailings slurry from the CIL process is currently pumped to the TSF.
Commercial production of gold at Tasiast began in January 2008 under Red Back. Since the Kinross acquisition of Tasiast in 2010, approximately 5.1 Moz. have been produced by Tasiast through the end of 2025. In the same period, a total of 1,031 Mt of material have been mined from various pits, including around 77 Mt in 2025.
Waste rock is used for haul road and tailings dam construction as needed. The existing road network is well developed and requires continued maintenance. Additional roads will also be required throughout the life of the mine. These roads will be constructed using the current mining and support mining fleets.
Electric power at the mine site is supplied by a mix of thermal and solar generation. For thermal power, the mine site has two primary generation plants supplied by heavy fuel oil that generate 40 MWe (Phase 2) and 19 MWe (Phase 1) with medium speed reciprocating engines. There are also two generation plants (Phase 1 – 14 MWe, Tasiast Team Village Plan – 9 MWe) which are typically only run during maintenance periods at the primary generation plants.
Tasiast also constructed a photovoltaic solar power plant with power generation capacity of 34 MWe and a battery system of 18 MWe, with the first solar generated power to the site grid delivered in December 2023. The plant generates positive returns and reduces CO2 emissions by up to 44,000 t per year, or approximately 544,000 t from start date over the life of mine, which could save approximately 160 million litres of HFO over the same period.
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