Goldplat sees growth opportunities at Ghana recovery business, Kenya mine

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed Goldplat expects growth in its recovery business to come from its Gold Recovery Ghana (GRG) subsidiary in the 2018 financial year.

Goldplat, which on Monday released its results for the financial year ended June 30, noted the difficulty in procuring sufficient appropriate quality carbon material within Ghana for treatment by GRG forcing the subsidiary to procure material from West Africa and South America.

GRG is also working with the Ghanaian government to assess the potential of cleaning up artisanal tailings, which could potentially be a significant opportunity for GRG.

“If successful, this project will not only be profitable and contribute to growth in GRG, but it will pave the way for once again processing artisanal tailings and for processing by-products with contaminants such as mercury – both from within Ghana as well as from international sources – thus creating new revenue opportunities,” Goldplat pointed out in a statement on Monday.

A pilot plant for the processing of artisanal tailings has been acquired and is expected to be in production in the second quarter of the 2018 financial year.

Meanwhile, production and profitability at the Goldplat Recovery Limited (GPL) subsidiary, in South Africa, are expected to remain at the same levels as in the 2017 financial year; however, the focus will shift to the more profitable carbon-in-leach products in South Africa and the procurement of additional by-products from outside of South Africa.

Growth from mining operations will be focussed on the Kilimapesa expansion project, in Kenya.

Subsequent to the end of the 2017 financial year, the crusher section at Plant 2 at the mine was commissioned, with the plant consistently exceeding the planned 120 t/d throughput target. A second mill will now be installed at Plant 2.

Goldplat invested £2.21-million in capital expenditure, of which £1.48-million was spent on the completion of stages one and two of the expansion at Kilimapesa.

Profit from operating activities from continued operations for the financial year to June 30, increased by 140% to £2.91-million, as a result of a strong performance at both GRG and GPL.

The Kilimapesa mine, however, continued to trade at a loss as the benefit from increased processing capacity was only seen towards the end of the financial year due to delays experienced during construction of the processing plant.