Galane to ramp output as gold price recovers
Chakalisa Dube | Tuesday August 30, 2016 15:02
Mupane mining manager, Cedric Sam revealed this to councillors recently when giving a brief about operations at the mine.
“Should the gold prices continue to be above $1,300 per ounce we believe that it will be a good opportunity to start mining at some of our open pit licences. For the last six months gold prices have steadily increased from $1,000 to $1,300 per ounce,” said Sam.
Before the collapse of gold prices in 2014, Mupane was mining open pit at Golden Eagle, strip mining at Thekwane pit and underground mining at Tau pit.
From the middle of 2014 gold prices reportedly sank to about $900 per ounce and in a bid to control operational costs late in that year, Mupane moved swiftly and ceased operations at Golden Eagle.
Operations at Golden Eagle were replaced by processing sub and low grades stockpiles at Mupane and Signal Hill in a bid to complement works at Tau and Thekwane.
“The lower prices last year dropped gold production from 41,500 ounce/annum to 26,300 ounce/annum and the cash cost dropped from $1,000/ounce to $849,” Sam indicated.
Sam also said the company will start paying royalties (for one year) to the government before the end of this month. Last year owing to poor business the company asked government to defer payment of its royalty fees for the year ended July 1, 2015.
The mining manager added, “We are also optimistic that previous underground mining operations can be re-activated and that several of the known deposits that were mined as open pits can continue to be mined underground”.
He told councillors that Mupane has commenced works at Signal Hill, Golden Eagle, Tau and Kwena to assess the viability of converting them to underground facilities.
The mine, which is wholly owned by Galane Gold, a company with Canadian roots, currently employs 175 employees while its sub-contractors have created jobs for 164 people.
Although he did not give a specific time frame as to when planned activities at the mine would take place, Sam said once in full swing the planned activities would significantly create employment at the mine.