Orange Business Services, a branch of the large global telecommunications company Orange, said it has been successful in providing secure satellite VPN services to improve communication between the Russian headquarters of Nordgold and the company’s Lefa mine in Guinea and the Bissa and Taparko mines in Burkina Faso in West Africa. Nordgold has six other mining operations in Russia and Kazakhstan.

Due to its rapid business growth in Africa, Nordgold needed to modernize its data channels to improve communication between sites while benefiting from a high level of network security, quality of service, an optimal price and the ability to prioritize traffic, especially video conferencing and voice over IP.

To connect Nordgold’s satellite stations—two in Burkina Faso and one in Guinea—Orange’s satellite teleport in France was used, coupled with a high-speed optical communication link with the Russian Orange network and the customer’s infrastructure. The implementation was supported by Orange Business Services experts from the Middle East and Africa.

“Nordgold adopts best practices for managing business processes at all its plants, and this also means daily interaction with the company management,” said Sergey Zinkovich, CFO of Nordgold. “The contract with Orange guaranteed us a prompt and reliable integration of African units into Nordgold’s existing corporate infrastructure.”

“The ability to implement transborder projects of any level of complexity is one of the key benefits of doing business with Orange,” said Helmut Reisinger, senior vice president, Orange Business Services Europe, Russia & CIS. “We see from the GDP of Russia that Russian multinationals have a very successful track record in going global. We can help MNCs wherever their business takes them—including in Russia with our country-wide infrastructure and service offerings.”

Orange Business Services said it is the only international telecommunication and integration services provider operating in the business-to-business sector in Russia with country-wide state-of-the art network infrastructure that is fully licensed, including a long-distance voice license. 

Nordgold was founded in 2007. The company has nine operating mines, one project at the design stage, five projects in the late stage of exploration and numerous projects at an early stage of exploration and licensing in Russia, Kazakhstan, Burkina Faso and Guinea. Nordgold has around 10,000 employees in the CIS countries and in West Africa. In 2012, Nordgold gold production totaled 717,000 oz.

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