After seeing his Yamana acquired for $4.8 billion, Peter Marrone sets sights on Africa

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(Kitco News) - Peter Marrone, chairman and CEO of Allied Gold, says the current setup for the company is similar to Yamana Gold, which he built and sold earlier this year to Pan American Silver and Agnico Eagle Mines.

Marrone spoke to Kitco mid-September at the Gold Forum Americas 2023 held in Colorado Springs, CO.

"Not dissimilar to 2003 with Yamana, they were assets that had been known but forgotten about that had development plans that were far better than people anticipated and the same is true here," he said. "The difference in this case is that the production platform is substantially greater."

Allied Gold has two producing mines, Sadiola in Mali and the Cote d'Ivoire Complex, at about 350,000 ounces annual output, but Marrone says there is potential for significantly higher production.

"Based on proven and probable reserves alone, we get to over 700,000 ounces by 2029 with a step up in 2026, but that number is likely going to be a lot higher than that because what we saw as part of our due diligence is that there's gold everywhere, so we expect that the proven and probable will increase. That gets us closer to 800,000 ounces production, that's not a big leap to go from 800,000 ounces all the way through to a million."

He noted that Yamana's production went from 84,000 oz in 2003 to 1Moz in 2023.

Marrone said gold equities are trading "as if the gold price is not $1,900. I think that we're in this perfect storm of precious metal prices going higher but the equities following suit and frankly probably doing better than precious metals."

Kitco Mining's coverage of the Gold Forum Americas 2023 was sponsored by Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd.

By

Andrew Topf

For Kitco News

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