April 3 (Reuters) - The west African state of Mali, which has been hit by a coup and a northern rebellion, is Africa's third-largest gold producer and is regarded as a lucrative growth frontier by miners with relatively low costs.
Mali's gold revenues surged by more than 20 percent in 2011 to 240 billion CFA francs (${esc.dollar}487 million), tracking a surge in world prices, though gold output slipped to 43.5 tonnes from 46 tonnes in 2010.
The largely desert country relies on gold for about 70 percent of export revenues and 15 percent of gross domestic product.
Gold operations in the vast, land-locked nation are located in the south and west, near the borders with Senegal and Guinea and hundreds of kilometres from the advancing rebels.
Following are some details about the foreign gold mining companies and their operations in the country.
RANDGOLD RESOURCES
- London-listed Randgold Resources is heavily invested in Mali where it produced about 450,000 ounces of gold in 2011, two-thirds of group production.
Randgold's mines have continued to operate but investors remain wary and its share price has fallen nearly 20 percent since the coup on March 22.
Randgold also operates in other politically-risky African countries such as Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo but Mali remains key to its target to raise output to 1.2 million ounces by 2015.
ANGLOGOLD ASHANTI
- The world No. 3 gold miner produced around 228,000 ounces from its three Mali mines in 2011.
IAMGOLD
- Toronto-listed Iamgold produced 150,000 ounces at its joint-venture mining operations in Mali in 2011.
AVION GOLD CORP
- This Canadian-listed miner has seen its gold production in Mali almost double to around 91,000 ounces last year from just over 50,000 in 2009. It has said its 2012 target is to raise that significantly to between 140,000 and 150,000 ounces.
EXPLORATION
GOLD FIELDS
- South Africa's Gold Fields, the world's fourth largest bullion producer, has a drilling exploration project in the country but has suspended its operations out of "an abundance of caution."
CLUFF GOLD
- Cluff Gold has a small exploration project in western Mali with a project licence that covers 109 sq km.
(Sources: Reuters, Company websites, annual reports)
(${esc.dollar}1 = 492.5710 CFA francs) (Compiled by Ed Stoddard; editing by James Jukwey)
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