The miner would need to produce an extra 250,000ozpa in just 18 months to reach this ambitious target but it says it has the goods.

Last month, Endeavour CEO Sébastien De Montessus told Mining Journal the Ity CIL plant would be up and running by mid-2019.

Ity CIL will contribute around 200,000ozpa once fully ramped-up, compared to the current 60,000ozpa heap leach operation.

Endeavour vice president for finance Michael Sumares made the case for West Africa and the Birimian greenstone belt as an investment destination at the Mining Journal Select London conference on Tuesday.

His focus was on Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, although the company's new Kamala project in Mali will also be key in getting it above the 900,000ozpa production level and Tabakoto also an important mine.

He said the region got a bad rap undeservedly.

"We think that people take a negative view of West Africa as an investment destination, based on a lack of awareness of the continued development in the region's governance and legislation," he said.

"These states are increasingly becoming more stable democracies with elections being monitored by the IMF, which also offers guidance on fiscal and monetary policies, to further embed stability and good governance within the region."

Sumares said the region's prospectivity was shown by the US$190 million spent on exploration in Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire last year.

In years past money has been well-spent, with Burkina Faso ranking sixth in discovered ounces in the past decade at 23Moz (Colombia was on top with 50moz).

But recent terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso and the deaths at one of Hummingbird Resources' sites in Mali show parts of the region still have a way to go, and royalties in Endeavour's targets are on par or above those in Canada and Australia without the infrastructure benefits seen in more developed jurisdictions.

Randgold CEO Mark Bristow said last year his company was not getting bang for its buck in Cote d'Ivoire.

"Issues that should be addressed immediately are the increasingly serious problem of illegal gold mining, the granting of permits to companies that lack exploration capacity and expertise and a history of delivering world class mines, and the acceleration of the permitting process," he said last year, also raising energy infrastructure as a major issue in the country.

Randgold says it has contributed $1 billion to the country since work started on Tongon.