Aim-listed Katoro Gold and its joint venture (JV) partners in the Blyvoor gold tailings project have agreed a strategy and associated deadlines for securing project financing.

Katoro will seek to complete the project financing, sufficient to fund the construction and commissioning of a beneficiation plant and auxiliary operations, on or before September 30.

The date for finalising a financing option was initially set for June 30, but had to be extended again owing to Covid-19-related delays.

The JV partners believe the deadline leaves sufficient time to duly consider funding options and proposals from potential funders that have already shown an interest in investing in the project.

Katoro executive chairperson Louis Coetzee says the company has received indications of interest from 14 parties keen to provide project level financing towards the construction and development of the Blyvoor project.

This followed the company publishing a positive scoping study on the project.

Katoro conducted site visits earlier in July to show investors the project, while the company continues with work on a resource upgrade programme. The programme will inform a definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the project.

The resource upgrade programme consists of exploration and geotechnical drilling, as well as confirmatory metallurgical test work.

The programme will increase the resource confidence level to declare a probable reserve for DFS purposes. It will also provide critical metallurgical data to ensure optimal gold recovery rates in the final detail design of the gold processing plant required to process the Blyvoor tailings.

Katoro in January announced that it had entered into an agreement with Blyvoor Gold Operations and its holding company Target Mine Consulting to jointly reprocess the 1.34-million-ounce gold tailings resource owned by Blyvoor in South Africa.