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January 2015
MODERN MINING
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MINING News
Goldplat plc, the AIM-listed African gold
producer, has issued an operations update
for its gold recovery businesses in South
Africa and Ghana.
In order to increase the value added to
the Group’s products, the company has
decided to increase its production in gold
bullion and correspondingly reduce prod-
uct sold in concentrate or other forms.
To achieve this objective, the Group has
entered into a toll-treatment agreement
with a local mine in South Africa to acquire
dedicated elution capacity.
Under this arrangement, material from
Goldplat Recovery (GPL) is being pro-
cessed and material from Gold Recovery
Ghana (GRG) will also be processed in the
near future. The intention is for GPL to
increase its in-house elution capacity and,
to this end, it has purchased an elution
plant to be re-erected and commissioned
at the Benoni site, with a view to being
operational towards the end of H1 2016.
GPL is in discussions with Rand Refinery
Goldplat to acquire dedicated elution capacity
to redefine the relationship between the
two companies for the longer term benefit
of both. Initiatives taken by GPL as detailed
above, as well as arrangements with other
refineries with respect to certain materials,
will allow the processing of the material
currently not being processed at Rand
Refinery. The effect is to increase the vol-
ume of bullion bars supplied to the Rand
Refinery for final processing.
According to Goldplat, GPL continues
to perform satisfactorily on the back of
the successful implementation of various
initiatives made by the company during
FY 2014.
The upgrading of GPL’s rotary kilns
to reduce electricity consumption and
improve the quality of ash produced is
progressing well and remains on target to
be completed at the end of March 2015.
Maiden resource announced for Brakfontein
Universal Coal has announced a maiden
JORC 2012 compliant coal reserve estimate
of 9,62 Mt within the northern open pit
areas of its Brakfontein project.
Brakfontein is located in the Delmas dis-
trict, 25 m east of the company’s Kangala
mine, and contains a total JORC compliant
resource of 75,8 Mt.
Commenting, Universal Coal’s CEO, Tony
Weber, said, “The declaration of a maiden
reserve represents the next important mile-
stone in the project’s development and a
significant step in our medium-term goal of
bringing this asset to book.
“Following the recent granting of a
mining right, Brakfontein only awaits the
receipt of its water licence (IWULA) before
proceeding to development. We will now
focus our efforts on optimising the feasibil-
ity study including investigating the case
for utilising excess capacity at the nearby
Kangala operation.”