JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Project house TWP is building a gold plant in Zimbabwe on a build, own and operate (BOO) basis as part of a toll treating agreement with African Consolidated Resources.

TWP CEO and Basil Read executive director Nigel Townshend tells Mining Weekly Online that the plant, to be commissioned in June, will treat 4,5 g/t gold-dump material at the rate of 20 000 t/m.

TWP Investments, the company directly involved, is headed by Dean Cunningham and TWP is now part of the JSE-listed Basil Read group.

Townshend says that TWP may build a new gold plant to cope with a throughput of 60 000 t/m with the help of its BOO profits.

There are two other projects on the horizon, one a copper project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the other a manganese project in South Africa.

In the energy field, TWP is negotiating to take an equity stake in a well-advanced wind-farm project in the Eastern Cape, which has secured a power-purchase agreement with the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality.

The results of TWP, which Basil Read acquired late last year, were not included in the group's latest results, but will be included in the 2010 accounts.

Townshend tells Mining Weekly that sentiment in the mining industry is improving and that TWP's workload has stabilised.

He is also finding significant synergy between TWP and contracting company Basil Read.

TWP's R100-billion project pipeline has been moderated down to a confirmed R60-billion worth of projects currently being worked on.

"We do have another R40-billion to R50-billion worth of projects which will come to fruition at some point in time," Townshend adds.

Project funding remains a concern.

"If there is one weak area, it is access to finance and, while these projects may be delayed, they are good projects and they will ultimately find the capital to go from the feasibility study stage into the execution stage," Townshend tells Mining Weekly.

Commodity prices are rebounding, but a dampener for projects in the South African sphere is the strong rand.

Currently, 35% of TWP's work is from outside South Africa and Townshend sees that rising to 50% in the next 18 months.

A lot of activity that TWP is seeing is in the rest of Africa and in the global market.

TWP Australia, which had a dismal year last year coming off the highs of 2008, is starting to turn around.

A Perth-based Australian client has awarded TWP work on a new A$60-million gold-mine project in the Philippines, TWP's initial fees on that being A$5-million, and the company is negotiating a second project in Indonesia.

"Sentiment in Australia itself is very buoyant. Commodities have bounced back, particularly iron-ore, and Western Australia is experiencing a boom on the back of natural gas," Townshend says.

There are two large natural-gas projects that total A$150-billion and TWP is, with Basil Read construction, eyeing ancillary pipeline services work in Australia.