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Tuesday, March 24, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

A technical team from mining services company JIC was doing an on-site technical study at Pamodzi Gold's provisionally liquidated Orkney gold mine. This was to determine how much cash would have to be injected into the business.

Liquidator Enver Motala estimated that between 25- and 40-million-rand would be needed, with a large portion of the 25-million-rand being needed to pay arrear salaries.

Motala said that the technical team was concentrating on putting mine-safety regulations in place.

JIC Mining Services CEO Jagdish Parekh said that JIC had, several weeks prior to the provisional liquidation, proposed an operational turnaround programme to the Orkney management.

Since then, JIC had provided similar details to the liquidators and believed that there was not a case to liquidate Orkney.

AngloGold Ashanti expects gold production at its Geita mine, in northwest Tanzania, to surpass 300 000 ounces this year, up from 260 000 ounces in 2008.

Chief exectutive Mark Cutifani said that AngloGold Ashanti's Tanzanian operations have had a few rough years with operations below expectations. In October and November last year, Geita had to shut its SAG mill and the mine suffered a pit wall failure the year before.

He said that the company planned to invest on average about 30- to 40-million-dollars in the mine each year to boost production between an annual 500 000 ounces to 600 000 ounces in five years' time.

Geita employs more than 3 000 people and is one of AngloGold Ashanti's largest of its eight open pit mines in Africa.

Also making headlines:

Toronto-based Gabriel Resources is hopeful ahead of the Romanian Environment Minister's visit.
Anglo American looks at possible iron-ore joint ventures or acquisition opportunities in Australia.
Lenders to OZ Minerals are likely to extend a March 31st debt deadline.
And, Australia-listed Gulf Resources plans acquire diversified-miner Rio Tinto's vermiculite project in Uganda.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit miningweekly.com.