JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed Goldplat and South Africa’s Rand Refinery have entered a payment dispute, wherein Rand Refinery was contesting R13.5-million in unpaid fees for the processing of silver sulphide material by Goldplat’s 74%-owned subsidiary Goldplat Recovery Limited (GPL).

“GPL has concluded the toll-treatment as specified in [a binding memorandum of understanding] contract and has issued invoices, some of which Rand Refinery has not paid and are disputing,” Goldplat said in a trading update on Monday.

Rand Refinery denied indebtedness; however, Goldplat maintained it was confident of GPL’s recovery of the money owed to it in full and had sent a letter of demand and instituted processes to resolve the issue based on legal advice received.

Meanwhile, Goldplat had moved to implement alternative plans for the treatment of the bulk of GPL’s products as Rand Refinery declined to accept by-product materials for treatment in its smelter during August for operational reasons.

While this was expected to have timing and cost implications, the use of alternative refiners would not have a significant impact on the company, Goldplat assured.

“As previous issues with the Rand Refinery smelter have placed the group’s companies in very difficult positions operationally, financially and with regard to their relationships with their clients, Goldplat has taken strategic steps to mitigate what the company refers to as single refiner risk,” it pointed out.

Goldplat early last year had to find alternative ways of having backlogged material processed, as Rand Refinery was unable to process certain by-product material produced by Goldplat’s subsidiary companies for nearly a year.

Goldplat said it would, in due course, announce any material variation the issues would cause to market expectations of the company’s financial results for the year ended June 30.

“In light of the strong end to the financial year, marked exchange rate movements, which have worked in the company's favour, and lack of certainty as to the recoverability and consequential accounting treatment of the disputed debt, the company is not yet in a position to advise whether its annual results for the year will be in line with market expectation,” Goldplat commented.