Production at one of the world’s largest gold tailings retreatment companies, DRDGold, edged higher in the latest quarter following a higher yield and it remains in a “favourable” position to pay a final dividend in August.
The company, valued at R20.97bn on the JSE, reported production rose 4% to 1,329kg in the three months to end-March as the yield increased to 0.030g/tonne from 0.255g/tonne, which lowered the cash operating costs per kilogram slightly to R691,061/kg.
DRDGold re-treats existing tailings dams and mine dumps to extract gold.
The gold sold by the cash-flush company, which is free of bank debt, decreased 2.4% quarter on quarter to 1,289kg.
All-in costs per kilogram increased 2.2% to R920,965/kg because of capital expenditure on the development of a 20MW solar plant as the miner looks to move away from relying on the troubled state-owned entity Eskom with power cuts curtailing production.
DRDGold CEO Niël Pretorius told Business Day in February that areas in which cable theft is rife may eventually be left off the power grid as it is economically unsustainable to keep replacing infrastructure, especially if power provision becomes partially privatised.
In its interim results, the company faced a 10% increase in operating costs to R1.8bn, because of rising costs of fuel and cyanide used in gold extraction.
With Katharine Child
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