anyone attend the meeting, page-7

re: from sth africa
Junior Mining










Rich pickings in SA tailings
By: Julius Cobbett
Posted: '24-JUL-06 12:30' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2006



Australian listed Mintails is pushing to capture the last opportunities for processing South African gold mine dumps.

Mintails director Richard Revelins told Mineweb this weekend: “In respect of doing further business with DRD and other South African miners we believe our opportunities in this regard are highly encouraging.”

“Advanced negotiations have been underway for some time with leading South African Mining houses which should result in Mintails significantly increasing its already extensive tailings resources,” says Revelins.

The company has this month begun processing under its rights to 305 million tonnes of tailings, slimes and sands located about 60 kilometres west of Johannesburg. The average grade is 0.42 grams per tonne.

Of this total about 170 million tonnes is under option from Acorn Mining and DRDGold. The remaining 135.5 million tonnes were acquired by purchasing Mogale Gold, a company that itself had failed to make a success of recovering gold out of old mine dumps.

On June 14 Mintails announced that commissioning sands had its Mogale Plant had been successfully completed and that its three mills were operational.

Now that the rand gold price is not far off record highs, tailings and other marginal projects have become feasible, and Mintails is not the only company to benefit.

Indeed, one of Johannesburg’s better-known landmarks, the Top Star drive-in, which is perched atop a mine dump south of the city, is set to be shut down, the economics of tailings processing having become more appealing than cinema. Crown Mines, a subsidiary of DRD Gold, has agreed to purchase the Top Star drive-in from Anglo Gold for processing.

“There are not too many mine dumps left in Johannesburg,” says Tlotlilsa Securities gold analyst Nick Goodwin. Most dumps, says Goodwin, have been processed by AngloGold’s East Rand Gold and Uranium Company (Ergo).

Harmony Gold has some dumps in the Free State, which contain both gold and uranium. Processing these dumps may be viable at current prices, reckons Goodwin.

In Mintails’ prospectus, chairman Bryan Frost said that the company plans to process 200,000 tonnes per month and deliver approximately 45,000 ounces per annum of gold during the first 12 to 24 months of operations at an estimated cash cost of $323 per ounce.

Shareholders have had a bumpy ride since listing. After offering its shares to the public at A$0.20, Mintails reverse listed into a gaming and casino shell early this year. It hit a high of A$0.39 in March, but has subsequently dropped to A$0.24.

In an update June 14 Mintails CEO, Dick van der Walt commented “Everything is now set to have production of our planned 220,000 tonnes of gold tailings per month for the month of July. We are very pleased with grades and recoveries to date which have been increasing in line with the ramp-up of production. There is no reason to believe that our production and gold recovery estimates will not be achieved from July going forward”.

Mintails has plans to complement its Australian listing floating itself on London’s AIM bourse. Listing plans are “progressing well,” says Revelins, with a “leading AIM broker/nomad appointed to assist with the listing.”