Gold producer Endeavour Mining Corporation has brokered a late night deal to take over Canada’s Avion Gold, making it one of West Africa’s largest mining companies.

The West African-focused Endeavour, which is listed in Australia and Canada, said the $C389 million ($A369.5 million) acquisition would increase its forecast gold production by about 50 per cent to between 282,000 ounces and 304,000 ounces for 2012.

Endeavour executive director Mark Connelly said he was up until the early hours finalising the deal to acquire the Canadian-listed Avion Gold Corporation, before delivering an address to the Diggers and Dealers mining conference in Kalgoorlie on Wednesday.

“We like production, you get paid for reserve ounces,” Mr Connelly told reporters.

He said Endeavour, which has a $C200 million debt facility, was on the lookout to make other acquisitions,and it would target two Canadian listed companies once the Avion deal was finalised.

“Clearly our strategy is to go and get something producing with a sizeable reserve, potentially a million ounce reserve,” he said.

“We can use our technical and operational people on the ground to go and improve those performances on those assets.”

Endeavour said the acquisition of Avion would create one of the largest West African mines, with three producing mines and a fourth mine under construction.

Each Avion common share is to be exchanged for 0.365 of an Endeavour common share, valuing Avion at $C88c per share or $C389 million.

Mr Connelly said he hoped to have the deal completed by October, which was around three months faster than the transaction would take on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).

The company would continue to focus on gold, he said.

Endeavour closed down 14 cents at $2.15 on Wednesday.