Modern Mining July 2020

Successful operations Pretorius says that, at the time when DRDGOLD acquired Ergo, it had a 25-year track record of suc- cess in gold surface retreatment. “It leveraged this quarter-century’s experience to refurbish and grow the Ergo business substantially. We are using the Ergo experience to refurbish and grow the FWGR business.” Far West Gold Recoveries was brought up to a production of 500 000 tpm on time (in under two years) and within budget, and Pretorius says a num- ber of options are under consideration for FWGR’s Phase 2 development. “The favoured option, although the gold price and access to capital will be determinants to a large extent, is the construction of a regional treatment plant to take capacity above 1,2-million tonnes per month as well as the construction of a regional tail- ings deposition facility.” To Pretorius, these developments will make DRDGOLD ‘the’ contender to treat the Far West Rand’s surface gold tailings deposits. Loots says Pan African Resources’ retreatment projects have the required economies of scale in terms of the size of the mineral resources, high throughput and short pumping distances, as well

as the availability of non-potable water supply from adjacent underground operations. “We designed our tailings plants to incorpo- rate a pre-oxidation methodology to enhance gold extraction. Our re-mining activities are also largely automated, with the latest in hydro-mining technol- ogy. These factors also allow lower production costs, which have a huge impact on the bottom line for the entire company.” 

Workers at one of Pan African Resources’ operations.

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