Modern Mining January 2024

TOP PROJECTS: GOLD

Pan African’s tailings re-treatment Having acquired the Mintails assets, Pan African’s ongoing strategy to re-process his torical tailings dams is expected to make the area safer and greener, while generating economic benefits for the communities and generating significant profits at current gold price levels.

L ast year, Pan African Resources commissioned an independent definitive feasibility study on the Mogale Gold tailings storage facilities (TSFs), which demonstrated a compelling com mercial project. In fact, it has been projected that Mintails could increase the Group’s current annual gold production by some 25%. According to Hethen Hira, Head of Investor Relations & Communication at Pan African Resources, in November 2020, the company announced agree ments to acquire the tailings assets for R50 million – approximately $3 million at the time. The assets comprised historic TSFs, or mine dumps, that were the residue from underground gold mines mined in the West Rand since the early 1900s. These assets were previously owned by Mintails Mining SA, which has been in provisional liquidation since 2018. “We have estimated, based on historical informa tion and confirmatory drilling work, that there are some two million ounces of low-grade gold in the TSFs, contained in around 240 mt (million tons) of material, grading at 0,3 g/t of gold,” he notes. “Given the low amount paid for the resources and based on preliminary calculations for capital and processing costs around Pan African’s flagship existing tailings re-treatment operations at Elikhulu,

in Evander, an expected return in excess of 20% is estimated. This should be even higher if the gold price increases.” Hira adds that the company’s tailings operations are hugely profitable, given the low all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of production of around US$1 000/oz. In addition, the company anticipates a life of mine at Mintails of around 20 years, with annual production estimated to average around 50 000 oz/year. The processing plant has a design capacity of 800,000 tons per month, similar to that of Elikhulu. “All gold companies continually look to increase their annual production and resource base. The Mintails assets are of the last remaining surface sources for gold in the country and would add some 50 000 low-cost ounces to our annual production for the next 20 years.” More crucially, these are also mined safely, with out any of the risks as involved with underground mining. And in reducing the footprint of tailings dams, there is also the added safety factor that the modern facilities will not likely be prone to structural faults that lead to dam collapses. Fast payback Hira reminds us that with the AISC to produce an

Hethen Hira, Head of Investor Relations & Communication at Pan African Resources.

Pan African Resources tailings operations are hugely profitable, given the low all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of production of around US$1 000/oz.

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22  MODERN MINING  January 2024