PROJECTS AND EXPLORATION
PROJECTS AND EXPLORATION
company's revenue stream. The company are confident that these solutions will
remain in place irrespective of how long the bridge repair may take. Alphamin
expects to complete the bridge repair work in late January.
According to its guidance report, Alphamin expects run-of-mine grades at Bisie to
average 4% tin (Sn), with plant recoveries reaching the 72% target. This should result
in tin-in-concentrate production of between 9 000t and 10 000t. Concentrate sales
will be about 2000t higher as the company makes up for the recent shipping delays.
Costs at the mine are expected to fall to between USD10 000 and USD12 000 per
tonne of contained tin (AISC) from current levels of USD12 000 to USD13 000 per
tonne of AISC. This would keep Bisie in the lowest quartile of global tin producers'
costs on a full cost basis. Higher current costs are the result of the bridge repairs and
alternative logistic solutions.
A TRIPLE TON FOR DRD
• Location: South Africa
• Phase: Production
• Mineral: Gold
DRDGold produced more than three tonnes of gold (3 037kg) from its Ergo and Far
West Gold Recoveries (FWGR) in the Witwatersrand region of South Africa for the
six months ended 31 December 2019. DRDGold reworks old mining dumps in and
around historic mine sites in South Africa.
This figure tracks the higher end of the company’s production guidance of 190 000oz
for the year ending 30 June 2020 and is a 33% increase on the 2280kg produced for
the six months ended 31 December 2018. The increase is mainly as a result of the
increased contribution by FWGR.
Meanwhile, the company announced that its 38% shareholder, Sibanye Gold,
trading as Sibanye-Stillwater, has exercised its option to acquire an additional 12%
interest in DRDGold.
DRDGold acquired the gold assets of Sibanye-Stillwater’s West Rand Tailings
Retreatment Project – now known as FWGR – in July 2018 in return for a 38.1%
stake in DRDGold. Sibanye-Stillwater had a 24-month option to acquire an
additional 12%.
“Sibanye-Stillwater has been our largest shareholder for just over 17 months now
and its support has been invaluable in the success of our implementation of the
first phase of development of FWGR.
“This latest transaction marks the single largest investment that has ever been
made by an individual shareholder in the capital of our company, and it bears
testimony to a shared vision for the future of our enterprise.
“It will come in very handy in accelerating the further unlocking of value in
DRDGold’s business and will go a long way to fund the early-stage development of
FWGR Phase 2,” says DRDGold CEO Niël Pretorius.
The FWGR acquisition increased DRDGold total mineral reserves at the time by
approximately 82%.
Its Phase 1 development, costing R330.7-million, entailed the upgrading of the
existing Driefontein 2 plant to retreat 500 000tpm of material reclaimed from the
Driefontein 5 tailings dam and of the Driefontein 4 tailings storage facility to cater
for additional volumes.
Phase 1 reached commercial production on 1 April 2019 and planned throughput of
500 000tpm during the first quarter of FY2020, within budget and time parameters.
Phase 2 has begun with conceptual studies to evaluate options to treat the
remaining reserves acquired from Sibanye-Stillwater. One option is to construct
a new retreatment plant and tailings storage facility to exploit a larger, regional
mineral resource, producing more gold over a longer period and rehabilitating a
much larger footprint.
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