TIDMCRND

RNS Number : 9156X

Central Rand Gold Limited

27 February 2017

 
             Central Rand Gold Limited 
  (Incorporated as a company with limited liability 
             under the laws of Guernsey, 
                Company Number 45108) 
  (Incorporated as an external company with limited 
      liability under the laws of South Africa, 
         Registration number 2007/019223/10) 
                 ISIN: GG00B92NXM24 
      LSE share code: CRND JSE share code: CRD 
       ("Central Rand Gold" or the "Company") 
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        Procurement of Concentrator Circuit 
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Further to the Company's announcement dated 10 January 2017, the Company is pleased to announce that it has placed the order, on binding contractual terms, for the procurement of the Concentrator Circuit. The Concentrator Circuit consists of four Centrifugal Concentrators, two scrubbers, one high-speed agitator, one de-watering screen, hoppers, conveyor belts, sand/water pumps, one master control panel, HDPE pipelines, solenoid/butterfly valves, cables, steel structure and other ancillary equipment necessary to process material prior to Thickener Underflow processing in the metallurgical plant.

As announced on 6 October 2016, the Company has executed an agreement to acquire Mine Waste Dumps that contain 2.3 million tonnes of gold bearing materials, with an average in-situ grade of 0.7g/t. As a result of the successful conclusion of the concentrator test work conducted in 2016, the Company had resolved to procure a Concentrator Circuit to upgrade the gold grade of the Mine Waste Dumps materials before further metallurgical processing. The metallurgical test work also indicated that the gold recovery was higher for the concentrated materials. This step places the Company closer to achieving that objective.

The Concentrator Circuit's nameplate processing capacity is 60,000 tonnes per month for sand and slimes materials. The plant includes a water recycling system to minimise the usage of clean water. It is anticipated that the Concentrator Circuit will arrive and be assembled in the second quarter of 2017, and commissioning to take place during the third quarter of 2017.

The Executive team of the Company has been working with the supplier on optimising the design of the Concentrator Circuit over the past six months, and has taken into consideration the recent issues with power and water consumption, processing capacity of each item of equipment, ease of installation and commission, and environmental protection. The Company has also ordered additional spare parts for all Concentrator Circuit equipment in order to minimise production downtime. The Board would like to thank Lola Trollip, William Zhuang, John Ramabaleha and the Central Rand Gold Metallurgical and Engineering team for their contribution on the design of the Concentrator Circuit.

Statement from the Chairman

"This is a crucial step towards enabling the Company to better process the available tailings, to maximise the efficiency of the production process and to maximise also the value of the throughput. The team has worked very hard to come up with the agreed specifications and to procure the right equipment for the Concentrator Circuit and this is now underway. I hope to continue to update shareholders with progress about this aspect of the operations following commissioning."

For further information, please contact:

Central Rand Gold +27 (0) 87 310 4400

Lola Trollip / William Zhuang

ZAI Corporate Finance Limited - Nominated Adviser +44 (0) 20 7060 2220

John Treacy / Jamie Spotswood

Brandon Hill Capital Limited - Broker +44 (0) 20 3463 5000

Jonathan Evans / Wei Jiao

Merchantec Capital - JSE Sponsor +27 (0) 11 325 6363

Monique Martinez / Marcel Goncalves

Johannesburg

27 February 2017

The information communicated in this announcement is inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Market Abuse Regulation 596/2014 ("MAR").

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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February 27, 2017 05:30 ET (10:30 GMT)