Name of the Project
Elikhulu tailings retreatment plant.

Location
The project is located at Evander mines, in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

Project Owner/s
Pan African Resources and Evander Gold Mines.

Project Description
Elikhulu comprises a technologically advanced, automated plant with a minimal labour requirement.

The Elikhulu tailings plant project entailed establishing facilities and infrastructure at Evander Gold Mines to retreat historical gold plant tailings at 1.2-million tonnes a month. This now includes production from the Evander tailings retreatment plant, which has been incorporated into the Elikhulu plant.

The Elikhulu plant processes up to 1.2-million tonnes a month of historical tailings from the three existing slimes dams at Kinross, Leslie/Bracken and Winkelhaak to produce up to 70 000 oz/y of gold. Elikhulu has access to 183 million tonnes of tailings that have accumulated over Evander’s seventy-year gold mining history and is playing a positive environmental role by remining the legacy dump sites of their mine waste and freeing the land beneath the waste for alternative use.

The Elikhulu project uses a conventional carbon-in-leach circuit with an additional pre-oxidation process.

The project has an expected life-of-mine (LoM) of 12 years.

Potential Job Creation
Elikhulu´s construction phase employed more than 1 700 people in 2018 and currently employs more than 400 permanent employees and contractors directly during its LoM.

Capital Expenditure
The initial construction capital for Elikhulu was about R1.79-billion.

Planned Start/End Date
The project broke ground in July 2017, had its first gold pour in August 2018 and was commissioned ahead of schedule in September 2018.

Latest Developments
Pan African has approved the development of a solar photovoltaic (PV) plant at Elikhulu, following the finalisation of a positive bankable feasibility study undertaken by independent consultants.  

The solar PV plant will initially provide up to 30% of Elikhulu’s yearly power requirements, and aims to reduce the operation’s dependency on the national grid and exposure to yearly power cost increases, which are expected to be above inflation.

The investment will promote a more sustainable renewable-energy solution for South Africa’s green economy and reduce Elikhulu’s carbon footprint. The solar PV plant is expected to generate electricity at a much lower cost than electricity provided by the grid.

The plant has an expected minimum life of 20 years. Additional positive environmental and social aspects include the generation of carbon credits and job creation within local communities. Pan African reports in its 2020 Integrated Report that this investment in renewable energy will result in improved efficiencies, a further reduction in operating costs and the long-term sustainability of Elikhulu.

Pan African Resources might expand this power facility to a possible 25 MVA for Evander’s Egoli underground gold mine project that was recently announced. A similar solar plant is also being considered at the company’s Barberton Mines operation, in Mpumalanga.

The engineering, procurement, and construction contract for the solar plant will be awarded to an independent contractor and Pan African is finalising the necessary legal and contractual agreements, as well as raising dedicated funding for the solar plant.

The solar project’s timeline will – in no particular order, be determined by permission being granted by State-owned electricity utility Eskom and the National Electricity Regulator of South Africa, as well as commercial agreements being concluded.

Key Contracts, Suppliers or Consultants
DRA Projects (Elikhulu) detailed design and construction supervision service) and Fraser Alexander (remining contract at (Elikhulu); M Squared Resources (solar PV plant project coordinator).

Contact Details for Project Information
Elikhulu: Pan African Resources project lead Jonathan Irons, tel +27 11 243 2900 or fax +27 11 880 1240.
Pan African Resources head of investor relations, Hethen Hira, tel +27 11 243 2900.