JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South African gold miner Pan African Resources expects its Barberton Mines subsidiary to produce about 50 000 oz of gold in the second half of the 2018 financial year – a 23% increase from the first half of the year, which ends on June 30.

In a further operational update to the one published on March 2, Pan African said on Wednesday that higher head grades from the Fairview mine’s 11-block MRC 272 and 358 platforms had resulted in an increase in gold production at Barberton Mines.

“To improve future flexibility and sustain gold production, development to the next high-grade platform (256 platform) will start early in the 2019 financial year and average grades of 28.4 g/t of gold over 5.2 m are estimated, over the 95 m strike length,” the company stated.

Pan African also reported a 100% increase in mineral resources at the Royal Sheba project, which forms part of the Barberton orebody.

Having revisited the mineral resource and incorporating a full three-dimensional geological modelling exercise, the company has doubled the measured and indicated categories of the mineral resource from 24 000 oz to 48 000 oz. The total resource contains 720 000 oz of gold.

The miner previously said that this orebody had the potential to deliver about 30 000 oz/y of gold at a relatively low production cost.

Consultancy DRA Global will undertake a life-of-mine technical feasibility study on Royal Sheba, which is planned to be completed this year.

Further, Pan African also reported that the installation of the regrind mill at the Barberton tailings retreatment plant remained on schedule to be completed by the end of next month, while the construction of the Elikhulu tailings retreatment plant was ahead of schedule, with first gold production expected in August.

The feasibility study completed at Elikhulu confirmed viability of a post-commissioning capacity increase, with resultant cost and throughput benefits, allowing the plant to process tailings tonnes, which were currently assigned to the Evander tailings retreatment plant.

A feasibility study reassessment of Evander Mines’ Egoli project was also in progress. The company will re-assess the feasibility of the project as a standalone project by the end of the 2018 financial year.