JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The presentation of DRDGOLD CEO Niël Pretorius at the thirty-sixth annual Gold Forum Americas 2024 in Colorado Springs highlighted the company’s world-leading gold-from-tailings advances that restore the environment, uplift communities and pay consistent dividends to shareholders.

Spelt out was DRDGOLD’s repositioning for the future, which involves a combination of reclamation sites coming on stream by financial year (FY) 2028 to increase tonnage throughput to three-million tonnes a month and gold production to more than six tonnes a year – a rise of one tonne.

The Johannesburg- and New York-listed DRDGOLD spotlighted its progress in large-scale mechanised on-surface gold recovery at its 13-year life-of-mine (LoM) Ergo on the East Rand and the fast-advancing 20-year LoM Far West Gold Recoveries (FWGR).

Execution of advanced proprietary technology by a specialist skillset reverses the environmental legacy of mining and frees up property for new use.

The circular economy is progressed, carbon footprint reduced and water stewardship upheld by South Africa’s oldest listed mining company still in operation, which has declared dividends uninterruptedly for the past 17 years.

Construction of Ergo’s 40 MW PV solar power plant is on track for completion next month and construction of a 160 MWh battery energy storage system is proceeding.

By FY 2025, PV will contribute about half of Ergo’s energy consumption and reduce electricity costs by R9/t to R15/t.

The long-term goal is to play a leading role in the consolidation of tailings operations in South Africa while simultaneously exploring how international opportunities can be operationalised.

Interestingly, the recovery of platinum group metals and battery metals is also under intense scrutiny.

Last year, World Gold Council membership involved DRDGOLD embracing responsible gold mining principles, against which self-assessment began in May.

The capital reinvestment programme in progress includes $110-million on the Driefontein 2 Plant expansion and $200-million on the regional tailings storage facility (RTSF) at FWGR, as well as $85-million for site establishment at Ergo.

Once commissioned, the RTSF will be large enough to receive the operation’s entire remaining West Rand resource and provide a solution to the ongoing impact of tailings storage facilities built over environmentally sensitive aquifers in the region.

Earlier this month, DRDGOLD transferred an agriculture entrepreneurship project to the community of Riverlea, near its Ergo mining operation, as part of creating self-sustaining livelihoods.

“We’re committed to improving the quality of life of our affected communities both through an improvement in the environmental conditions in which they live and through the roll-out of self-enabling poverty alleviation and educational programmes,” Pretorius stated in the presentation to Mining Weekly.