To produce gold as cheaply as possible, South African gold miner Pan African Resources is implementing a significant tailings retreatment project at its Evander mine, in Mpumalanga, which will result in the construction of the R6.35-billion Elikhulu tailings retreatment plant.

During a visit to the mine last month, media were shown the future location of the plant, with construction starting in the third quarter of this year and to be completed by the third quarter of 2018. Commercial production to is expected to start the following quarter.

Pan African group mining engineer Bert van den Berg explained that the first phase of the project would entail the treating of tailings from the Kinross mine dump.

The 58-million-ton Kinross dam is being treated as part of the Evander Tailings Retreatment Plant (ETRP) project, at a rate of 200 000 t/m, and the slimes are being processed at the Kinross mine. Head grades produced from the mine are currently in the region of 0.32 g/t at recoveries of between 42% and 50%.

The ETRP was commissioned in February 2015 at a cost of R174.3-million. Return on investment is expected in less than four years.

Phases 2 and 3 of the Elikhulu project, which will entail the treatment of the Bracken/Leslie and Winkelhaak dumps respectively, are scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2021 and the third quarter of 2026 respectively.

Once completed, Elikhulu will process one-million tons of tailings a month. The project is expected to recover about 689 000 oz of gold and will create 245 jobs once the plant reaches full capacity.

Meanwhile, Van den Berg pointed out that the next “organic underground growth” project at Evander was likely to be the 2010 payshoot, which has an estimated resource of about 2.2-million ounces at a grade of about 13 g/t.

Drilling of the payshoot started under previous owner Harmony Gold, which expected to complete the programme by 2010. Pan African is continuing drilling at the offshoot, having reached a depth of just below 1.5 km at the time of the media visit.

Harmony sold the Evander mine complex to Pan African in February 2013 for R1.5-billion.