A detailed feasibility study is now in full swing and will likely be completed in March, Holland said in a presentation at the Denver Gold Forum, broadcast over the Internet.

“I’m not going to make a decision now as to whether or not we’re going to develop that ourselves, whether we partner with other producers in the area, whether we sell it, or whether we float it,” he said.

“Once we get the feasibility study done, we’ll have a better idea as to the potential.”

The company has undertaken drilling on the 13 tailings dams that have been built up over about half a century around its South African operations, and has established about 50-million pounds of uranium in measured resources, plus four-million ounces of gold. Run-of-mine tailings from the group’s Driefontein mine also contain uranium.

Gold Fields is using a $50/lb uranium price in its studies, and believes it could achieve even higher prices by entering into longer-term sales contracts.

However, the project, if it goes ahead, would be fairly capital intensive, Holland said.

He refused to provide any figures, but emphasised that Gold Fields would need to see a “significant double digit” return to go ahead.

“I’d need to be satisfied that, on the basis of robust technical parameters, robust recovery rates and robust capital, we could get a double-digit return on this. And that’s going to be our objective,” he said.

“It’s early days yet, but the indications are that this is going to be something that could be exciting for us.”

Holland said that, while security of electricity supply is no longer a short-term concern to mines in South Africa, they now face the issue of higher power costs.

“I don’t think the supply side on power is the issue anymore – it’s the cost of power.

“And I think we need to make peace with the fact that power in South Africa is starting to approach the same costs as you find around the world.”

Holland said he met recently with Eskom chairperson Bobby Godsell and came away with the clear message that tariffs will continue to escalate.

“I would expect that we would double the tariffs over the next three or four years,” he said.

“And that would ensure that Eskom can finance the expansion that we need, and make sure that it can operate systematically.”

Holland said he was “very pleased” with the collective wage deal reached with South African gold-mine workers this year, at a salary increase of about 10,2%.

“I think all of us in the gold sector felt it could have been a lot worse than that,” he commented.

About 58% of Gold Fields’ output this year will come from South Africa. The group also has assets in South America, West Africa and Australasia.

The company has the second-largest gold reserve base in the world, and Holland asserted that the company is under no pressure to grow by acquisition.

“We don’t have to rush out and do merger and acquisition heroics – that’s certainly something we are not going to do.”

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