JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Partial production at JSE- and NYSE-listed Sibanye Gold’s Beatrix 4 shaft would resume on February 25, with the mine expected to have lost 1 029 oz of gold during the four-day suspension.
Operations at the shaft were suspended on February 20, following a fire, which affected a meaningful part of Beatrix 4 shaft.
“Beatrix management has isolated and plugged the affected area and carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide levels are declining at a rate which suggests that operations in the unaffected areas may resume as early as Monday,” the company announced on Thursday.
The fire, affecting 2 700 m2 of the Zone 5 production area, while isolated, had not yet been extinguished and the area would remain contained until the fire was dormant.
The full extent of the damage would be assessed only then.
Sibanye stated that about 1 961 oz of gold would be lost from the affected area for every month that production does not take place. Beatrix 4 shaft produced about 7 011 oz of gold a month, which represented about 24% of the total monthly output of the overall Beatrix operations.
Sibanye Gold, led by CEO Neal Froneman, was recently unbundled out of Gold Fields and seperately listed on the JSE and NYSE.