JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - South African gold producer DRDGold had approved capital expenditure of R8-million to bring forward the commissioning of a second pipeline feed from the Elsburg tailings complex to the ErgoGold plant, in order to accelerate production.

CEO Niel Pretorius said that the acceleration of production at ErgoGold was line with its strategic shift towards lower risk, lower cost, high margin production.

He said the company's surface retreatment operations, which were unaffected by developments at the struggling Blyvooruitzicht mine, delivered an increase in gold production of more than 9% in October compared with September, from 10 160 oz to 11 092 oz.

These surface operations now delivered 66% of DRDGold's production and their proportion of the total was expected to continue to rise.

The previously reported construction of a pilot plant to optimise the feed mix to the Brakpan plant had been completed and was delivering "encouraging results", Pretorius said.

The company had this week succeeded in placing its Blyvooruitzicht mine under judicial management to prevent the underground mine from falling into liquidation.

On Wednesday, Pretorius said that the South Gauteng High Court had granted the judicial management of Blyvoor, and he told Mining Weekly Online that the court still had to appoint a judicial manager.

A manager was expected to be appointed "within a few days' time".

The provisional judicial manager would manage Blyvoor until March 16, 2010, when he/she would present to the court a report on the performance of the business.

On, or prior to, March 2010, interested and affected parties may approach the court and provide reasons why the order should be dismissed or confirmed as final. If the order was confirmed, then a final judicial management order will be made by the court.

DRDGold said that, if, at any stage prior to March 2010, Blyvoor becomes profitable, any interested and affected party, including DRDGold, may bring an application before the court to lift the provisional order.

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