Evander
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Following the acquisition of the Mpumalanga-based Evander Gold Mines from Harmony Gold in March last year, dual-listed Pan African Resources on Friday announced that the construction of its R200-million Evander tailings retreatment project (ETRP) was approved.
The ETRP would exploit historically-generated gold tailings deposited on the nearby Kinross tailings storage facility (TSF) and was expected to retreat 2.16-million a year of gold tailings for 14 years.
The TSF was situated adjacent to the Kinross metallurgical processing plant and fell within the tenure of the Evander mining right.
The tailings project, commissioning of which would begin in January next year, comprised a total mineral resource of 597 000 oz and a mineral reserve of 369 000 oz.
Once completed in June next year, it was expected that the ETRP would contribute some 10 000 oz/y to Evander’s gold production at an expected cash cost of $800/oz.
The project would be fully funded by a gold loan of some 15 700 oz from Absa Bank and Pan African, thus, did not expect the cost of construction to impact materially on its other cash flows.
The loan would be repaid in quarterly instalments over a four-year period, starting in August.
The expected 2 800 kWh electric power requirement of the ETRP would be sourced as part of the current Kinross plant power reticulation.
Pan African noted that a remaining tailings mineral resource of 1.5-million ounces on the Evander mining right area presented the potential for a larger tailings retreatment plant to be constructed in the future.