Goldplat
Profits, not gold Africa Outlook talks to Goldplat plc CEO Russell Lamming, the man refocusing the AIM-listed firm. Writer Susan Miller Project manager Debbie Clark Goldplat plc is focusing on profits, not gold as it consolidates its successful South African gold recovery operation, refocuses its Ghanaian gold recovery operation and prepares the way for new operations in Burkina Faso and growing East African powerhouse Tanzania. While the AIM-listed firm had been involved in exploration and mining – including looking for small mines that would feed their recovery plants – the size of the projects, operational constraints and the current uncertain gold price environment simply did not add up when CEO Russell Lamming, appointed in September 2012, undertook a strategic review. A geologist with a business background, Lamming first became involved in AIM junior resource companies at African Platinum Plc, which was successfully sold to Impala Platinum in 2007 once the Leeuwkop platinum project had been proven up. His first CEO role was at Chromex Mining Plc where they took the Stellite chrome mine from exploration through to production. Chromex was sold at the end of 2010 to an integrated ferrochrome producer. For him, in the current economic climate, it made sense to concentrate on Goldplat's core gold recovery business – recovering gold from waste products of the gold mining process - which he feels had been seen as "the ugly duckling of the group". "Historically the profitable sections of Goldplat provided cash flow for the more 'in vogue' part of the business, which had been exploration…
DTC Botswana
A cut above the rest In 2011 De Beers and the Botswana government signed a ten-year agreement to move the London DTC to Botswana. Writer Ian Armitage Project manager Debbie Clark Botswana has experienced a serious resurgence of mining activity, with more discoveries seemingly every month. Speaking with me in 2012, Charles Siwawa, CEO of the Botswana Chamber of Mines, said the minerals sector of the country was flourishing and that "exploration for a wide variety of minerals is active and several new minerals projects were launched during last year." Botswana, he said, is a country "getting back to its feet" following the disastrous effects of the 2008 global economic meltdown. "The downturn in the global economy commencing 2008 has had serious repercussions on the mining sector in Botswana," Siwawa explained. "The industry went into a lull with some companies closing down whilst others retrenched staff all in an effort to reduce costs and weather the storm. I think since 2010 however the economic landscape has been changing, picking up, to the extent that in July 2011 we had the highest world record sales of diamonds from Botswana. That has tailed off slightly in terms of production and we are not yet back to the pre-2008 crisis levels but we are certainly producing diamonds and the economy is picking up." Diamonds are of course a girl's best friend; they're Botswana's too. And in August last year, De Beers began rough stone sorting in the country, a first step in its transfer from London to Gaborone. Rough…
