Ntsele said that the company was talking to its neighbours in both Orkney and the Free State to buy adjacent mines.

This follows Pamodzi's recent took over President Steyn gold mine in the Free State and also Orkney gold operations in the North West Province. The company's other two operations are on the East Rand and West Rand.

Pamodzi CEO Peter Steenkamp said Pamodzi's new North West Shaft on the East Rand, which was officially opened on Monday, would be producing at a rate of 30 000 t a month at a gold grade of three to four grams a ton, in addition to current 90 000 t a month of underground East Rand production.

Ntsele said great effort was being put into growing the JSE-listed Pamodzi and that Pamodzi group directors were organising funding abroad.

"Our big goal is to achieve one million ounces and we will achieve that," Ntsele said of the company with a current capacity to produce 420 000 oz a year from 10 000 oz only 18 months ago.

"We have to double in size in the next two years," Steenkamp told Mining Weekly Online.

Steenkamp said that he as "very confident" that Pamodzi would find the right assets to buy.

The company would continue to focus on the Wits Basin and was finding targets in and around its current operations.

"It's obviously tough at the moment, first of all to get credit and secondly because the gold price is so high nobody is really a seller, but we believe that in the next two years that the opportunity will arise to get the operations that we are targeting," said Steenkamp.

The company was mining at a low cost level of R200/t.

Steenkamp said that many potential investors had bought into the company's model of acquiring stressed assets and turning them to positive account.

"If we manage to do at Orkney and President Steyn what we have done on the East Rand in the next year, we are going to be in very good shape," he said.

Once the company had sorted out its limited share free float and working capital facilities, Steenkamp believed that the share price would respond.

A$50-million working-capital instrument was expected to be in place by month end and steps were being taken to improve the free float of shares.

"We have very little free float and not a lot of trading taking place in our share," Stenkamp said.

Steps would be taken in the next quarter to reduce the share overhang by increasing free float to 27% from the current 16% by bringing Thistle's 11% holding into the market by the end of June.

The target was still to have 50% minus one share in free float and 50% plus one share in the hands of black shareholders.

On a possible listing on a foreign exchange, like the Toronto Stock Exchange, as had been mooted, Steenkamp said Pamodzi would want to have reached its million-ounce production target and have eliminated most of its share overhang before taking such a step

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