A scoping study under way at gold exploration company Witwatersrand Consolidated Gold Resources’ (Wits Gold’s) De Bron prospect, in the southern Free State, is expected to be completed in the first half of 2010, says Wits Gold investor relations manager Hethen Hira.

The De Bron prospect is adjacent to the company’s Bloemhoek site and both prospects are positioned on either side of the De Bron fault. Bloemhoek, which is the deeper section, underwent a recent drilling programme and a prefeasibility study has recently been completed.

Hira says that the historic data acquired for the Bloemhoek prospecting site as well as the company’s own drilling contributed to the advancement of this section to the prefeasibility stage.

Exploration at De Bron may lead to a stand-alone operation or contribute to the establishment of an additional access point to the deeper Bloemhoek site. He says that develop- ment of De Bron could allow for the faster establishment of access infrastructure to Bloemhoek. Acquiring access at an earlier stage is significant for the project as it will contribute to a faster return on investment for stakeholders.

Gold-mining at shallow levels is seeing an increase in the local mining sector as it requires lower initial capital expenditure than deep-level gold-mining and investors are able to access a return on investments in a shorter period. The scoping study for De Bron is planned to investigate the viability of establishing a shallow multireef mining operation of between 500 m and 1 200 m in depth.

Wits Gold does not plan to mine its prospect sites on its own and have joint ventures with major mining houses once bankable feasibility has been completed. Hira says that the company will continue to hold an interest in the mining entities to be formed, but will not be directly involved in the mining once the exploration is complete.

He adds that revised mining legisla- tion has assisted junior mining explora- tion companies in gaining access to sites pre- viously underdeveloped by major mining houses.

Wits Gold is also exploring sites at the Potchefstroom goldfield outside Carletonville, west of Johannesburg, as well as in the Klerksdorp goldfield.

The company has built a core yard outside Potchefstroom where drilled core is stored and analysed to provide comprehensive geological data from the company’s explora- tion.

Hira says that the company has interests in gold and uranium that occur as a copro-duct in many of the Witwatersrand reefs. The uranium resources at Potchefstroom have recently been independently estimated and the company is waiting for uranium rights for its prospecting area in Klerksdorp.

He says that, while the uranium price fluctuated in the past, the company is significantly bullish on gold and expects that the gold price will continue to rise in the future.

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