Gold producer Pan African has secured R1.3 billion ($70.3 million) in funding for its Mintails project in South Africa.
The funding was provided by Rand Merchant Bank, a division of FirstRand Bank Limited (RMB), with Nedbank (acting through its Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking division), as co-financier.
In total, the group raised R2.5 billion in debt funding for the project, as it gathered R800 million in December 2022 and R400 million in March this year.
“This important milestone completes the funding package for Mintails’ development capital,” said Pan African chief executive Cobus Loots.
He said full-scale construction of the tailings retreatment plant at Mogale will now commence, with expected production of 50,000 ounces per year for more than 20 years (when including both the Mogale and Soweto tailings resources).
This would be done at an all-in-sustaining cost similar to that of the group’s highly profitable Elikhulu operation at Evander.
The group said it will commission the project in the latter half of the 2024 calendar year, not the 2025 calendar year as previously planned following the closure of the project funding.
Mintails was put under provisional liquidation in 2018.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
