OPERATION FOCUS
Goldplat: gold from wastes
John Chadwick looks at a gold producer with a difference, providing house keeping clean up for the gold producers of South Africa and Ghana. The company,
Goldplat, is looking to other material sources around the world
Goldplat is currently producing in excess of 30,000 oz / y of gold( 20,000 oz for its own account) from the recovery of byproducts of mining operations as well as primary gold mining. It has a JORC-compliant resource of 1.012 Moz( 82,000 oz at Goldplat Recovery( Pty) Ltd( GPL) in South Africa; 670,000 oz at Kilimapesa mine in Kenya; 167,000 oz at Anumso in Ghana and 93,000 oz at Nyieme in Burkina Faso).
GPL in South Africa produces most of the company’ s gold – 22,135 oz in 2015. The same year, Kilimapesa output was 2,278 oz and production fell( a situation that should be reversed this year) at Gold Recovery Ghana Ltd( GRG) to 6,111 oz.
During the March 2016 quarter GPL produced 4,864 oz of gold of which a total of 3,365 oz were sold for own account and 975 oz were returned to clients by way of metal transfers.
CEO Gerard Kisbey-Green, commented on the results for all the operations:“ This has been another good quarter for Goldplat. I am pleased to report continued profitability at the recovery operations and decreased losses at Kilimapesa. Good progress was made on major projects, including the Kilimapesa plant project and the GPL tailings storage facility.”
GPL, South Africa
GPL’ s plant in Benoni on the East Rand recovers gold from byproducts of mining and processing gold ore – woodchips, mill liners, fine carbon, slags, sludges and waste grease. Not only does this generate revenue for both GPL and clients, it also provides an economic way for mines to dispose of waste materials and conform with environmental obligations.
The supplier base consists of blue-chip, private and local producers who would have to otherwise pay significant money for environmental clean-up. GPL has contracts with all major South African gold producers except Harmony. For downstream processing, GPL has contracts in place with Aurubis in Germany and Rand Refinery in South Africa to treat certain materials not processed in house, as well as for gold refining. In the March quarter, most of the concentrates produced during the period went to Rand Refinery in South Africa, reducing the turnaround time significantly, with the balance
Gerard Kisbey-Green, CEO Goldplat
GPL in South Africa produces most of the company’ s gold
of the ashes and carbon sent to Aurubis in Germany.
GPL also treats Impala Platinum wastes, particularly mill liners, and produces a PGM concentrate, and more PGM contracts with other producers are likely in the future. And, in its latest revenue stream development, the company commenced a silver toll recovery project for Rand Refinery to which the high grade circuit and about half of the increased elution capacity was dedicated. This project continued into the June quarter.
Another new contract for GPL has been won with AngloGold Ashanti’ s Geita mine in Tanzania.
There is significant gold in the wastes from GPL’ s client gold producers. For example the wood chips can grade 1-20 g / t( average 5-10 g / t Au); but the real treasure is the fine carbon, grading 100-2,000 g / t.
One of the key’ s to GPL’ s success is its decades of experience, in which time it has acquired the knowledge to find the best treatment route for specific products. The experienced management team and workforce have the ability to process diverse byproduct material optimally through the various processing circuits and to apply the appropriate technologies to maximise recoveries.
Different circuits are used, depending on the input. It is a very flexible operation, really a factory with off the shelf equipment, explains
16 International Mining | JUNE 2016