JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – London-listed Central Rand Gold (CRG) was reassessing its operations following a poor first-quarter performance, the company said on Monday.
The group, which operates in South Africa, said it was in talks to outsource its gold production and had embarked on a Section 189 process regarding potential redundancies, owing to the erratic milling availability of the company’s Bateman mill and lower gold grades.
Discussions with an external toll processing company for the possible outsourcing of the bulk of CRG’s mine production were ongoing.
“The option to outsource gold production provides operating cost protection [and] access to additional metallurgical production capacity, as well as ensures a more stable production profile,” the company said.
To alleviate the impact of the lower-than-expected internal production, toll treatment was increased from 1 660 t in the fourth quarter of 2012 to 12 746 t in the first quarter of this year.
The three months ended March 31 delivered total production of 54 613 t – 40% of which originated from CRG’s opencast operations.
This was compared with the 2012 first quarter achievement of 19 216 t from the underground operations and 36 211 t from the opencast operations.
The new business structure and plan was expected to be implemented in June following the completion of the Section 189 process.