The granted "exploitation permit" comes after the West African gold miner earlier this month accepted an offer of a US$150 million debt facility from three banks to build the project.

Yaoure's capital cost is estimated to be $265 million, with Perseus recently having more than $80 million of cash and bullion.

In addition it last week signed an underwriting agreement with two capital market firms covering A$45 million worth of warrants.

All going to plan Yaoure will nearly double Perseus' annual production rate to around 500,000oz in 2022, with all-in-site-costs across the group averaging less than US$800 per oz.

First gold from the plus-200,000ozpa development could come at the end of 2020.

Perseus current mines in Cote d'Ivoire at Sissingue, and in Ghana at Edikan.

Shares in Perseus were trading this week at A44c, capitalising the company at $477 million.

The stock is little changed from this time last year, though in August shares were changing hands for less than 35c each.