Fortuna approves $109m expansion to lift Séguéla above 200,000oz a year

Fortuna Mining has approved a 30% expansion of its Séguéla gold mine in Côte d'Ivoire, the company said on 29 July 2026. The project will lift the processing plant's capacity from 1.75Mtpa to 2.3Mtpa and is expected to support production of more than 200,000oz a year over the coming decade.

Construction capital is estimated at $109m, which Fortuna will fund from operating cash flow. The company expects a payback of about two and a half years and is targeting gold recoveries of 94.5% from the expanded circuit.

Timeline

Construction is due to start in the second half of 2026. Underground mining at the Sunbird deposit is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2027, and the plant is expected to ramp up to its new rate in the second half of 2028. Earlier in July, Fortuna reported a 34% increase in estimated mineral reserve ounces at Séguéla and approved a $48m budget for Sunbird underground equipment and infrastructure, with environmental permits for the underground expected in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Strong current performance

Séguéla is already Fortuna's main source of gold. In the second quarter of 2026 it produced 41,683oz from 421,464t milled at an average head grade of 3.46g/t, taking first-half output to 83,699oz. The mine's 2026 guidance is 160,000 to 170,000 gold equivalent ounces.

Chief executive Jorge Ganoza has set a corporate target of moving Fortuna's consolidated gold production rate toward 500,000oz a year by 2028. Séguéla's expansion is one pillar of that plan; the other is the Diamba Sud project in Senegal, for which Fortuna published a feasibility study in June showing an after-tax NPV of $1bn at a $3,500/oz gold price.

What it means

For Côte d'Ivoire, the expansion adds to a wave of investment that has made the country one of West Africa's fastest-growing gold producers, with Endeavour's Lafigué, Perseus's Yaouré underground and Montage Gold's Koné project all adding capacity. So far Côte d'Ivoire has avoided the ownership confrontations that have unsettled investors in Mali and Burkina Faso, and companies have responded by committing expansion capital.

For Fortuna, funding the expansion from cash flow rather than debt or equity reflects the strong margins that high gold prices have delivered at a mine with a head grade of more than 3g/t. The main execution risk lies in the sequencing: the plan pairs the plant upgrade with the start of underground mining at Sunbird, so delays to underground permitting or development would ripple through to the expansion.

Sources

• GlobeNewswire (Fortuna release): Fortuna Approves 30% Capacity Expansion of the Séguéla Gold Mine in Côte d'Ivoire, 29 Jul 2026
• GlobeNewswire (Fortuna release): Fortuna reports second quarter 2026 production of 72,217 gold equivalent ounces and advances key growth initiatives, 09 Jul 2026
• Mining Weekly: Gold output in Côte d'Ivoire set to climb in 2026 as mines expand, 11 Jun 2026
• Stock Titan: Fortuna's estimated $109M expansion: over 200,000 ounces annually expected, 29 Jul 2026

Photo: Forest between the town of Séguéla and its airfield in north-western Côte d'Ivoire. Yacoubaibrahimkone, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.