AngloGold Ashanti on Friday announced that the sale of the Moab Khotsong mine to Harmony Gold and the sale of the Kopanang mine to Heaven-Sent SA Sunshine Investment, have been completed.
The gross cash proceeds of R3.57-billion will be used to reduce debt, in line with AngloGold’s commitment to continually improve strategic and financial flexibility.
Both sales were announced on October 19 last year, as part of AngloGold’s capital allocation strategy.
At the time, AngloGold noted that while the Moab Khotsong mine includes a brownfield mine-life extension option (Project Zaaiplaats), of more than 15 years, it had range of other attractive brownfield and greenfield development options with high returns and relatively short payback periods.
As such, AngloGold deemed it prudent to sell Moab Khotsong while it still had remaining life from existing ore reserves, along with the optionality provided by Project Zaaiplaats.
Meanwhile, its decision to sell the Kopanang mine was based on the gold miner’s restructuring of its South African operations, while ensuring that the mine could be returned to profitability.
AngloGold had initially planned to cease operations at the mine and transition it to care and maintenance, at which point Heaven-Sent SA Sunshine Investment expressed an interest in buying the mine.
AngloGold’s remaining South African assets include the Mponeng underground gold mine, which is currently ramping up production from its Below 120 Level life-extension project, and two surface operations comprising the Mine Waste Solutions tailings dump-retreatment business and the rock dump reclamation and processing business.
Together, these South African operating units will account for about 13% of AngloGold’s total yearly production.