"The intention is to disclose our partner in PNG in the latter part of this month (April)," Briggs said in an interview with Mining Weekly Online.

He said that Harmony was still busy with negotiations in this regard, declining to say how many firms were on the shortlist of possible partners that it drew up in December.

Harmony had previously said that it planned on bringing a partner on board for all of its assets in the South East Asian country, on an equal ownership basis.

Briggs noted that Harmony would not likely use the R1,9-billion that it realised from the sale of certain uranium-containing assets in South Africa to capitalise its PNG projects, where it is building a gold/copper mine and searching for other potential mines.

Rather, it would use the cash to service debt and to fund growth projects in South Africa.

We've got a lot of projects in the pipeline that we haven't really been able to get off the starting block because of the huge capital expenditure required," he stated on a site visit in Randfontein, west of Johannesburg.

Harmony also owns the Wafi/Golpu prospect in PNG.

Its assets in that country include 4,2-million ounces of gold reserves, 41,7-million ounces of silver reserves, 1,7-billion pounds of copper reserves, and 18,9-billion pounds of molybdenum reserves.

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