How do you build a mine or expand a project you've never visited before?
Investors are now more likely to look favourably at jurisdictions that were previously disregarded as being too risky, simply because they are being compensated for that risk as the gold price continues to rally.
Operating in Africa can mean faster permitting times, shorter construction lead times, lower capital intensity and fewer capex blowouts.
For service providers, such as Lycopodium, geopolitical risk doesn't really factor in to the same level as it would for a mining company. Its job is to provide the services, manage the project and deliver an end result to companies hoping to start a mine.
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What it has seen is a focus on nationalising skills.
"We must have twenty companies in Africa, because you need to. One of the things that has affected us very significantly is the increasing focus on the nationalisation of capabilities. And so, we have a very strong focus on making sure that our teams are very high in terms of the factor of local people and local skills," Peter de Leo, managing director of Lycopodium, told Mining Journal.
Lycopodium has worked on over 450 projects worldwide and has been in Africa since 1994. It has hubs in Toronto, Perth and South Africa.
Recently, they have worked alongside Perseus Mining in Cote d'Ivoire at the Yaoure gold project, delivering the DFS and FEED and undertaking the process design, detailed engineering, and drafting for the process plant. They also provided water services, including river abstraction, TSF pumping and decant return, steel-framed process plant buildings and 11 kV power reticulation.
It has also worked with Newmont on the Akyem gold project, delivering stages four and five, and with Leo Lithium on the engineering, procurement and project management at the company's Goulamina project in Mali.
Outside of Africa, it has worked with First Quantum Minerals on its Cobre Panama ball mill six project, delivering the detailed engineering design for the process plant and providing technical input into the procurement process for the construction of the plant, services and associated infrastructure.
In fact, contracting their services is seen as a way to de-risk a project.
"We are familiar with a lot of the financiers, and I guess, more importantly, they're familiar with us," Peter de Leo said.
"And so for a junior miner in particular, we often get involved, or get asked to get involved, because it's seen as a de-risk of the project," he added.
"It's not rocket science, but for those that haven't done it, it might appear quite a daunting thing to deliver a greenfield or brownfield upgrade project in [West Africa]. But we've been doing it for many years, and we can point to lots of success, and that gives investors a lot of confidence," de Leo said.
In May this year, the company locked in a $40 million engineering, procurement and construction management contract at Osino Gold's Twin Hills project in Namibia.
The EPCM contract for Twin Hills will see the ASX-lister design and commission a 5Mtpa carbon-in-leach circuit at the Namibian mine, plus associated non-process infrastructure.
The contractor is no stranger to Namibia or Twin Hills, given that it has supported the delivery of a preliminary economic assessment, prefeasibility study and definitive feasibility study for the mine from 2021 to 2023. It has spent the last 12 months completing front-end engineering and design work for the process plant.
Lycopodium has also worked on Paladin Energy's Langer Heinrich uranium mine and Imerys Gecko Graphite's Otjiwarongo project in the country.
Lycopodium generated $167.4 million in revenue and $25.2 million in net profit after tax over the first half of fiscal 2025.
"We're strong believers in Africa," De Leo told Mining Journal.
"We've been there continuously, other than the downturn in 2001-2002, when gold was at $280/oz. We were in Tanzania when Ashanti became AngloGold Ashanti. And I still think the resources industry is a tremendous opportunity for people," he said.
