African gold producer Goldplat in June announced that significant progress has been achieved at its gold recovery businesses Goldplat Recovery Limited (GPL), in South Africa, and Gold Recovery Ghana (GRG), in Ghana.

These recovery plants were developed to counter the direct and indirect consequences of its third-party refining partner, Rand Refinery, in South Africa, being unable to process certain by-product material for the company.

The inability of Rand Refinery to process backlog material impacted on profits and cash flows of Goldplat during the past nine months and had a serious effect on Goldplat’s ability to secure new material for processing in the last year, the company says.

However, this situation is now under control and Goldplat is returning to business as usual regarding this issue, the company says, stating that it has secured sources to process all backlog material arising from the inability of Rand Refinery to process certain materials, and has set a target to clear the backlog by December.

Operational and engineering efficiencies have been introduced to the elution plant at GPL, which is now eluting 3 t/d of material, as opposed to the 2 t/d previously achieved.

Goldplat notes that the elution capacity at GPL will be expanded further, with an elution plant facility acquired from South African gold producer and recovery specialist DRDGold having been deconstructed and moved to GPL’s Johannesburg site.

The first phase of installation and commissioning of the first of two 4 t columns of the former DRDGold plant is expected to be completed by October, which will further increase elution capacity to 8 t/d. The second 4 t column is planned to be shipped to, and installed at GRG in Ghana and the third thereafter again at GPL in South Africa.

In addition, GRG is once again receiving new material from its existing clients as well as from new sources, Goldplat states.

Further, Goldplat has also signed a contract with Aurubis Refinery, in Germany, to process by-product material. The five-month pipeline from shipping to gold production is now full and cash from this material has begun flowing into Goldplat.

Arrangements are currently being made to prefinance a certain amount of the Aurubis pipeline material to alleviate the current cash flow issues if the need arises, Goldplat says, noting that terms are being negotiated and final agreement is expected to be concluded shortly.

Meanwhile, Rand Refinery has started to process a small amount of certain categories of the backlog materials on a limited basis to assist in clearing the backlog.

Goldplat CEO Gerard Kisbey-Green says: “Since my appointment as CEO in February 2015, I am pleased with the progress we have achieved in order to return Goldplat to positive cash flow and profitability”.

Numerous other improvement initiatives, such as a new washplant, new mill, tailings facility upgrades and extensions, to name a few, are all progressing well and Goldplat will report on further progress of these initiatives in the near future.