Evander

Our Evander Project in Mpumalanga is made up of two adjacent properties – the No 6 shaft area formerly owned by Harmony Gold and the virgin Twistdraai property. No 6 shaft was mined for a few years, and to a limited extent, until 1998 when poor gold prices rendered production unprofitable. Twistdraai lies directly to the south and was never incorporated into any of the Evander gold field’s mines.

Taung’s acquisition of the properties from Harmony was initiated in 2008 and completed in 2010. Drilling is taking place to refine our knowledge of the properties, but a scoping study based on historic exploration data indicates that the combined properties contain probable reserves and inferred resources totaling 28.2 million tons grading 6.8 g/t gold in situ and containing 6.17 million ounces of gold.

The scoping study forecasts a mine production life of 30 years to produce a total of 5.94-million ounces of gold. Cash costs per ounce are estimated at $397. The life of mine capital cost –including the cost of a two-year programme to provide underground access and plant and equipment – is estimated at $1.03 billion. Development is scheduled to start in January 2013, with actual production beginning in 2015.