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Thursday, April 1, 2010.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Tamsyn Graumann.

Making headlines today:

Despite ongoing challenges regarding power supply stability, new indigenisation legislation and working capital pressures, indications are that Caledonia Mining's Blanket gold operation, in Zimbabwe, will reach its targeted yearly output level of forty-thousand ounces a year before year-end.

The Blanket mine was halted from October 2008 to April 2009, because of continuing non-payment of foreign exchange by the country's Reserve Bank, for the sale of gold delivered to the Bank's Fidelity Printers and Refiners.

But the mine reopened after the government approved a new policy under which gold producers can market and sell their gold directly and are also allowed to keep the payment for their gold in foreign exchange.

Caledonia is also working on an expansion project at Blanket's number four shaft and the crushing/milling section of the plant, which should be completed by the end of the year. It will enable the operation to ramp up production to the forty-thousand ounces a year level.

Diversified miner BHP Billiton has restarted the Groote Eylandt manganese mine, in the Northern Territory.

Operations at the mine were suspended on March 28, owing to a tropical cyclone threat.

A company spokesperson told Mining Weekly Online that the operation had restarted in line with the Groote Eylandt Mining Company's safety procedures.

The spokesperson wouldn't comment on the production lost during the down time.

Also making headlines:

Workers at Aurora Empowerment Systems' Grootvlei mine, in Springs, are still waiting to be paid.
Government, business and labour set South African mining on a new growth path.
Chinese steelmaker Baosteel says benchmark pricing will benefit mills and miners.
And, Pan African Resources is to buy a stake in a PGM tailings facility for 53-million-rand.

That's a round up of news making headlines today.