The mining lease did not expire @knowlesy - it was terminated by the Ghanaian Minerals Commission  - on the instructions of the Ghanaian Minister of Lands and Natural Resources.  No reason for the termination of the lease has been provided to us by RSG, and it's quite possible that is because no explanation for the termination of the lease has been provided by the Ghanaian government to RSG.

I wrote a straw on this yesterday. 

RSG have only received $5m of the $105m sale price for Bibiani.  The other $100m was conditional on "...satisfaction of government approvals and other conditions".  What has occurred this week is the exact opposite of government approval.  This is the government shutting them down entirely.  Luckily RSG's operating mines are NOT in Ghana - they are in Mali (Syama) and Senegal (Mako).  Their only asset in Ghana is Bibiani which was on "care and maintenance" - pending sale - it has not been operating recently.  As Chifeng’s Executive Chairman, Mr Wang Jianhua commented back in December when the sale was announced: “We are delighted to have secured such a significant gold mining asset in the current market. Resolute has defined an exciting future for Bibiani as a high margin, long life underground gold mining operation. Chifeng will immediately invest the required capital, and provide the necessary expertise, to recommission Bibiani as an operating gold mine in the shortest possible timeframe.”

RSG needed that $105m to reduce their substantial debt, and they won't be getting $100m of it now unless the Ghanaian government changes its mind, which does not seem likely, based on past experience.

To answer your questions - Yes, this certainly changes things in terms of that sale now not going through, but remember that RSG were not operating the mine, it had been shut down, so the impact on them isn't to do with production, it's to do with debt reduction.

Your other question regarding there being more to this than first meets the eye.  I would say, Yes, almost certainly, to that as well.  I don't know the real reasons for the Ghanaian government actions this week, and we may never know.  That's the thing about sovereign risk - in terms of operating mines in risky countries - things can happen unexpectedly and there is usually very little a company can do about it.

Further Reading:

https://www.northernminer.com/news/ghana-terminates-resolute-minings-bibiani-lease/1003829548/

https://www.mining.com/resolute-mining-shares-drop-after-bibiabi-lease-terminated/

https://www.miningmx.com/news/gold/45683-resolute-shares-plummet-after-bibiani-gold-mining-lease-is-terminated-by-ghanaian-govt/

https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/resolute-mining-bibiani-gold-mine-ghana-news/

Good points there Chalky1610.  However I would point out that very similar arguments were made around the Thai Government's decision to shutdown KCN's Chatree gold mine at the end of 2016.  My understanding is that the mine is still shut down and Kingsgate (KCN) still has not received any compensation for that decision.  The only thing they have been able to do was recently process and sell the gold they already had in the Chatree processing plant, known as gold "in circuit", a very small amount.  Arguments that seem logical here in Australia sometimes don't work in other countries.  Sure, Ghana is a very different place to Thailand, but both have reputations that you would think they would want to protect, and yet Kingsgate is now trading at one tenth of the share price that they were before they were forced to close their Chatree mine on December 31, 2016.