NEW-FOUND “OLD-GOLD”

NEW-FOUND “OLD-GOLD” Consider this: - At a single large Gold Mining Shaft with typical average grades of 30 gram/ton. 10 000 workers, with Cotton Overalls, work (crawl, in a stoping width of less than 1,5 meter at 30 degrees dip) for 310 shifts per year. A stope-floor concentrates up to ten times the mined grade on the mine-plans record.

As we know, fine gold has a natural affinity to "cling" to itself failing that, to cotton and every stope-worker unknowingly carries an estimated clustered 0.025 gram of fine gold to surface for the daily laundry and shower process. This gold, smaller than 10 microns, ends up floating and suspended in the wash water to the local pan, dam or sewage plant and quickly finds another Au or another affinity particle to bond with - usually carbon. Assume the life of this shaft was 30 years and Dory Gold at a value of ZAR 1 000 000 / kilogram.

The arithmatic as follows:- 0,025 gram x 10 000 x 310 days/year x 30 years = 2 325 000 gram or 2 325 kg or 2, 3 metric ton. At R 1 000 000 R/kg and 2 325 kg at say 30 shafts all-over Southern Africa = R 2, 3 Billion x 30 = (R 69 B) USD 3, 6 B annually – makes you think.

Good recoveries were demonstrated and with the proceeds, we can rehabilitate our total water and sanitation infrastructure and end up with a healthy profit after paying SARS their share and creating many jobs and prosperity for a long time.

Samples from field-testing proved proportional to the arithmetic’s above.