JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The troubled Zuma-Mandela gold-mining aspirant Aurora Empowerment Systems on Tuesday took a step closer to crucial JSE status when the JSE-listed Labat shell, into which Aurora is reversing, announced that it was acquiring two Aurora gold plants for R38-million.

Lead Pamodzi Gold liquidator Enver Motala told Mining Weekly Online that Aurora, which already had 45,7% of Labat, was in the process of housing Aurora assets in Labat to fulfil the JSE's requirements for a reverse listing.

Motala said that JSE status for Aurora was the condition precedent for the company to receive R750-million in equity capital from Swiss funder Global Emerging Markets (Gem), to pay for Pamodzi Gold's liquidated and stricken Orkney and Grootvlei gold mines.

Motala added that Aurora was also receiving mandates from minority shareholders of Labat and that once Aurora had mandates from 21% of the minorities, it would be in a position to to take control of Labat.

Once it had control – which he anticipated would take place in the next week or two – the company would change the name of Labat on the JSE to Aurora Holdings and fulfil the only remaining condition precendent needed to trigger the Gem funding.

"The signs are very encouraging," Motala told Mining Weekly Online.

Aurora is headed by chairperson Khulubuse (Khula) Zuma, MD Zondwa Mandela and director Michael Hulley. Zuma is the nephew 
of incumbent South African President Jacob Zuma, Mandela is the grandson of former President Nelson Mandela and Hulley is President Zuma's attorney.

Motala said that he had met with Gem director Chris Brown and that Gem had agreed to release R50-million of the R750-million to the liquidators, which would be used for regulatory approvals and the outstanding wages and salaries for care-and-maintenance personnel at the Orkney and Grootvlei gold mines.

The payment of the close-out obligations were due on September 30, when the North Gauteng High Court was expected to give its Section 311 sanction to the marathon transaction.

Labat said in a Stock Exchange News Service announcement that it would acquire Primrose Gold Metallurgical and ERPM Gold Metallurgical from Primrose Gold Mines, a wholly owned Aurora subsidiary, by issuing 38-million R1 shares. The share price of Labat closed at 65c a share on the JSE on Tuesday.

The acquisition would give it control of two of only four East Rand ore-crushing and gold-smelting plants.

Labat said that Primrose Gold's metallurgical plant currently treated 4 500 t of gold-bearing material a month, recovering 15 kg of gold at a recovery grade of 3,3 g/t.

It anticipated that gold production would reach 30 kg/m soon and rise to 50 kg/m in the next 18 months.

The crushing circuit was being upgraded to increase the throughput to 12 000 t/m.

The plant's second ball mill would be recommissioned on demand.

The ERPM plant would be dismantled, gold recovered from it and its equipment used to recover other precious metals at the Primrose plant.

Labat said that Primrose's ore-processing and gold-smelting operations were currently achieving R2-million a month in operating profit, which was expected to improve in the next few months.

The processing of gold-bearing debris from ERPM's now redundant 240 000 t/m plant was expected to realise 10 kg of gold a month over two years.