UNBUCKLING THE WEST AFRICAN GOLD BELT
UNBUCKLING THE WEST AFRICAN GOLD BELT
GoldPlat has positioned itself as a leading gold recovery services company with two world-class operations in South Africa and Ghana. We take a look at how the company is engaged in the production of gold and other precious metals by processing byproducts of the mining industry
Writer: Ed Budds | Project Manager: Josh Whiteside
An industry leader in African gold recovery, GoldPlat’s tried and tested strategy is focused on utilising its robust cash flow – generated from flagship gold recovery operations in South Africa (SA) and Ghana – to self-fund the sustainable growth and expansion of its niche gold recovery business model.
The company leverages an experienced board of directors and management team with a proven
track record of creating shareholder value through the development of African resource assets into production.
The flagship item in its portfolio is a leading, profitable, and mature gold recovery business based in SA, with a burgeoning and strong blue-chip client base.
This segment of GoldPlat processes by-products of the mining cycle including mill liners and wood chips to produce bullion.
GHANAIAN OPERATIONS
Elsewhere, GoldPlat’s junior gold recovery operation in Ghana benefits from its prime location in the West African gold belt.
BEHIND THE SCENES OF A RECOVERY PLANT
GoldPlat’s recovery plant is designed to process a variety of material, such as:
WOODCHIPS – Generated from underground mine supports which become caught up in the ore during processing. They are screened off after the milling stage of the processing plant.
VLEI MATERIAL – Mined in the vicinity of the mine operator’s processing plant and tends to accumulate in settlement dams or vleis.
FINE CARBON – Created when a modern processing plant rreprocesses activated carbon for reuse. The abraded carbon grains are collected by screens or filters in the plant.
WASTE GREASE – When replaced, is reprocessed by GoldPlat to recover spillages of ore which has stuck to the grease.
LINERS – Used to protect the mill shell used in the processing plant. Made of rubber or steel alloys, they collect small amounts of gold or precious metals which can be liberated through GoldPlat’s recovery process.
Any product which contains precious metals is of interest to GoldPlat’s research team who will investigate methods to extract metal from unprocessed materials.
As a result, the plant provides access to raw materials from mines in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Mauritania, as well as across Ghana itself.
Like GoldPlat’s South African gold recovery arm, its Ghanaian operation has attained contracts with some of West Africa’s major mine operators including AngloGold Ashanti, Golden Stars Mining Company, Newmont, Perseus Mining, and Gold Fields.
Working with such world-class names in the industry represents a major achievement for GoldPlat and remains a great source of pride for the company.
In Ghana, GoldPlat’s strategy is to increase by-product contracts through other major mining companies in the West African region, whilst also continuing to invest in its operations to simultaneously increase processing capability.
WORKFORCE AND COMMUNITY
Maintaining good health, safety, social, and environmental standards is very important to GoldPlat, and to this end, it is committed to assisting its workforce and the local community in numerous ways.
The company is currently focused on establishing environmentally conscious mining cultures within each country of operation.
Elsewhere, GoldPlat continues to improve the skills of its workforce. In this regard, all employees can voluntarily join an Adult Basic Educational Training programme which is outsourced to an educational facility and is funded by the company itself.
In selected cases, it also assists in the tertiary education of employee’s children whereby the full financial burden of schooling is removed from the parent.
Additionally, GoldPlat maintains a comprehensive array of donations to various causes that it believes in and continues to fund a number of local individuals and organisations in need.
METHOD IN THE MINING
Having built its enviable reputation over a 30-year period, GoldPlat’s recovery technology provides an effective economic method for mines to dispose of waste materials whilst at the same time adhering to a mine’s environmental obligations.
The company operates from a 22-hectare freehold site based in Benoni in Gauteng, near the centre of the East Rand Goldfield.
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THE WEST AFRICAN GOLD BELT
This geological marvel represents a major, high-potential region situated within the Birimian Greenstone Belt of the West African Craton.
Stretching across Ghana, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Senegal, it hosts numerous large-scale gold deposits formed around 2.2 billion years ago, with key areas including the Ashanti belt in Ghana and the Houndé and Boromo belts.
In a geological context, the region is characterised by Birimian Paleoproterozoic rocks, consisting of greenstone belts (volcanic and sedimentary rocks) and granitic basins that experience intense shearing, often yielding high-grade, structurally controlled orogenic gold deposits.
Home to a number of key mining regions, Ghana is often considered the centrepiece of the belt, with the country leading African production.
After conducting testing and an assay to establish moisture content, recoverability, and size, GoldPlat purchases the materials from the mine operator when they become available, which helps the company’s management schedule production in an efficient manner and makes it more difficult for potential competitors to enter the market.
GoldPlat’s extraction operations and multiple process lines enable it to keep materials separate, which provides a high degree of flexibility when proposing a solution for a particular type of material. The processes which are employed include roasting in a rotary kiln, crushing, milling, thickening, flotation,
gravity concentrators, leaching, elution, and smelting of bullion.
Production is scheduled to make the most efficient use of the materials, taking into account the ore grade and anticipated recovery factors, before they are blended and transported to GoldPlat’s various plants, ensuring production levels are reasonably consistent from month to month.
In some cases, similar material can be treated in separate plants, but the wide variety of materials stockpiled means that GoldPlat can benefit from blending different materials for more effective processing.
Precious metals are usually recovered from materials within a single process. In some cases, there
may be a second process which takes place many months afterwards, for instance, where the residue from processing very high-grade material is left to oxidise in a stock dam in order to enhance the overall recovery rate.
STRATEGY FOR SUCCESS
GoldPlat’s primary strategy is to build upon the successes of the profitable gold recovery operations in SA and Ghana – where the company sees the strongest potential for continued revenue growth and stable margins.
As such, GoldPlat will continue to optimise its South African gold recovery and build its Ghanaian site to replicate the successful and more mature operation in the former.
Moving forward, the company will also continue to direct its focus on crystallising value from its current gold mining and entire exploration portfolio.
Finally, as a result of higher gold prices, increased volumes, and operational agility and improvements, the GoldPlat board expects the group’s results for the financial year to materially exceed prevailing market expectations.
Tel: +27 (0) 11 749 6300 info@goldplat.com goldplat.com