106 - The International Resource Journal

FEBRUARY 2013 The African Business Journal95Status with accompanying tax benefits, accordingto the company’s website. Both operations providean economic method for mines to dispose ofwaste materials, while at the same time adhere tovarious environmental obligations.For the financial year of 2012, these operationsproduced approximately 31,354 ounces of gold.Goldplat constantly looks for ways to be moreproductive, more economic and more cutting-edgein the gold recovery field in order to maximizeproduction capabilities, and has worked with mininggiants such as Anglogold Ashanti, Goldfields,Harmony and Lonmin.“The contracts vary depending on the supplier– we can purchase the material outright andretain the gold, toll treat and return the gold or acombination of the two,” explains Lamming. “As aservice provider we need to cater for the specificrequirements of our customers.”Goldplat’s gold recovery operations generatesolid cashflows, and as long as the supply of byproductsand tailings are available from the miningindustry, the businesses can be replicated at arelatively low cost.With this in mind, Goldplat has started theprocess of expanding its gold recovery projectsthrough the establishment of a new processingunit in Burkina Faso, naturally, funded by profitsfrom South Africa and Ghana.“In the current economic climate we are inthe fortunate position to have a steady cashflowthat not only sustains our operations, but alsofunds the growth of the business,” says Lamming.“There are very few junior resource companiesout there that can say ‘let’s take advantage of ourcash generative platform and build the companyinto a mid-tier gold producer’.”At the end of the day, Lamming hopes toachieve his goal of developing Goldplat into amid-tier gold producing company. In order to dothis, he believes Goldplat needs to maintain itsfocus on the growth of its recovery operations, butimportantly, to initially start targeting projects thathave the ability to sustain a 50koz pa gold mine.“In addition to the growth in the recovery businesseswe will be investing in late-stage explorationprojects that require funding and technicalknow-how to take these projects through the feasibilitystage to development,” says Lamming. “Thisis generally the highest-risk stage of any miningproject, so the fact that Goldplat is not reliant onequity market funding means that Goldplat shareholdersare shielded from dilution.”www.goldplat.com