JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed gold producer Goldplat on Friday said the “significant progress” made on its capital projects had improved the production and efficiency of South Africa-based subsidiary Goldplat Recovery.
The company had installed and was currently commissioning a new electric boiler, which was expected to have a significant impact on the treatment of backlog material and capture more of the gold recovery value chain in-house.
“Although this boiler has been installed in anticipation of the installation of the first 4 t elution column acquired from DRDGold and scheduled for October, the immediate effect has been the ability to improve the utilisation of the two existing 1 t elution columns and to increase throughput to 5 t of loaded carbon per day from these two columns,” explained Goldplat CEO Gerard Kisbey-Green.
Further, the operation’s new R2.5-million woodchip wash plant, which was commissioned mid-August, allowed for an additional 2 kg of gold production a month from the existing wood chip stockpiles, with payback expected in six to seven months.
Meanwhile, the increase in elution capacity netted the company a contract with Rand Refinery to toll-process a large batch of by-product material for the refinery through Goldplat’s high-grade circuit.
Material previously planned to be processed through the high-grade circuit would be processed through the low-grade circuit to be commissioned mid-September 2015.