Perseus advances construction of Tanzania's first new gold mine in 17 years

Perseus Mining reported steady construction progress at its Nyanzaga gold project in north-western Tanzania in a July 2026 update, with all carbon-in-leach tanks completed to full height and undergoing hydrostatic testing, mill installation under way, and two tailings storage facility embankments finished and ready for lining. The company has recorded eight million lost-time-injury-free work hours on the project to date.

Tanzania's first new mine in 17 years

Perseus acquired Nyanzaga through its takeover of OreCorp in May 2024 and is self-funding construction with $523 million of its own money, a rare approach in a region where new mines are more commonly built with a mix of project debt and equity. The project is expected to produce a total of 2.01 million ounces of gold over an initial 11-year first phase of mining, with first gold still guided for January 2027. Alongside the mine infrastructure, Perseus has completed resettlement-related community buildings, including the Sotta East and Sotta West schools, for people relocated to make way for the project.

Why it matters

Nyanzaga is the first major new gold mine to be built in Tanzania in 17 years, a gap that reflects a period of tense relations between the government and foreign miners earlier in the 2010s. Its progress, alongside Lake Victoria Gold's smaller Imwelo project elsewhere in the country, signals that international gold developers are again willing to commit large sums of capital to Tanzania, encouraged by a more predictable regulatory environment and record gold prices that have made even higher-cost new builds attractive.

What happens next

With most of the heavy civil work either complete or well advanced, the project's next phase is commissioning the process plant during the second half of 2026 ahead of the targeted first gold pour in the January 2027 quarter, a milestone that would confirm Perseus has delivered its first wholly self-funded new mine on schedule.

Sources

• Mining Weekly: Perseus advances Tanzania project construction, 24 Jul 2026
• Ecofin Agency: Tanzania: Perseus to Fund Construction of Nyanzaga Gold Mine with $523M, 05 Feb 2025

Photo: Lake Victoria near Mwanza, Tanzania, close to the Nyanzaga gold project. Dominicdeus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.