Bulyanhulu Gold Mine is an underground gold mine in the Shinyanga region of Tanzania, located 55 kilometers south of Lake Victoria. It is one of three gold mines owned by Acacia Mining plc, formerly African Barrick Gold plc, a company owned by Barrick Gold, listed on the London Stock Exchange, and operating in Tanzania. Acacia also owns the Bouzougi gold mine and the North Mara gold mine.
Polyanhulu is located in northwest Tanzania, in the Kahama District of the Shinyanga District, about 55 kilometers south of Lake Victoria and 150 kilometers southwest of the city of Mwanza.
Polyanhulu is a narrow-veined gold mine containing the minerals gold, silver, and copper in sulphides. Polyanhulu mineralization is associated with a number of steep veins. Bulyanhulu started commercial production in 2001.
Modern day gold mining in Tanzania dates back to the German colonial era, where the discovery of gold began near Lake Victoria in 1894. Work on Tanganyika’s first gold mine, the Sekenki Mine, began in 1909, and gold mining in Tanzania experienced a boom between 1930 and World War II. By 1967, the country’s gold production fell to a negligible level, but it was revived in the mid-1970s, when the price of gold rose again. In the late 1990s, foreign mining companies began investing in the exploration and development of gold deposits in Tanzania, which led to the opening of a number of new mines.
Barrick acquired the Bulyanhulu project in 1999 when it purchased Sutton Resources. The mine is located 150 kilometers (93 miles) southwest of the city of Mwanza, and is a regional centre. Bulyanhulu opened in 2001, and was built at a capital cost of US$280 million. After the opening of Polyanhulu, Tanzania became the third largest gold producer in Africa, after South Africa and Mali.
Bulyanhulu consists of an underground mine, processing plant, waste rock dumps, tailings containment, water management ponds, and associated facilities. As of 2014, there is a life expectancy of over 25 years remaining. When it was opened it was the deepest mine in Tanzania.