LONDON (Alliance News) - Goldplat PLC Wednesday said it has made "significant progress" at its gold recovery businesses in South Africa and Ghana and said the backlog of material caused by problems with its refining partner, Rand Refinery, will be cleared by the end of 2015 as a result.
Last year, Goldplat said its gold recovery operations had been impacted by "continuing difficulties" with its third party refiner, Rand Refinery. Those problems meant the gold miner could not process its product, causing a huge backlog of material.
On Wednesday, Goldplat said it has now secured a partner to process all of the backlogged material by December, and said Rand Refinery has started to process a "small amount" of certain material on a "limited basis". Goldplat has signed contracts with the Aurubis refinery in Germany to process by-product material over the next five months.
"The inability of Rand Refinery to process backlog material over the past year has also had a serious effect on Goldplat's ability to secure new material for processing - this situation is now under control and Goldplat is returning to business as usual regarding this issue," said the company.
The gold miner said its subsidiary which operates the Ghana operation is once again receiving new material from its existing clients as well as from new sources. Initiatives are also being put in place at both operations so the company can produce more gold bullion rather than concentrates, meaning it will not need to refine its product.
"Arrangements are being made to pre-finance a certain amount of the Aurubis pipeline material to alleviate the current cashflow issues if the need arises - terms are being negotiated and final agreement is expected to be concluded shortly," said Goldplat.
""Since my appointment as chief executive in February 2015, I am pleased with the progress we have achieved in order to return Goldplat to positive cashflow and profitability," said Gerard Kisbey-Green.
Goldplat were up 9.5% at 2.05 pence per share on Wednesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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GoldPlat (GDP)