JOHANNESBURG (I-Net Bridge) -- South African gold miner, AngloGold Ashanti [NYSE:AU], said on Monday that a partial slope failure occurred in an intermediate footwall of the Nyankanga pit at Geita Gold Mine in Tanzania on Saturday.
The pit had been monitored by slope stability radar and was safely evacuated in advance of the failure. No injuries occurred and there was no damage to equipment, the group said in a statement.
"The part of the slope that failed had been planned to be removed in future cutbacks, with the south-west side of the pit being redesigned, so as to address several fault planes that have been intersected during current mining activity in cutback 4," it noted.
The effects of the partial slope failure on future gold production are still being investigated and the company will provide detailed guidance to the market during its fourth quarter earnings presentation on 13 February, it added.
"In the interim, it should be noted that mining at Geita is currently primarily taking place in three other pits - the Geita Hill, Lone Cone and Matandani pits. This mining activity and associated gold production from these three pits is unaffected by this event. It is therefore the company's
expectation that Geita will continue to produce gold at similar rates seen through much of 2006," it said.
The partial slope failure does, however, delay access to high grade orebodies in the Nyankanga pit, which had just started to be uncovered through mining activity on cutback 4. It is the mining of these high grades that will enable a potential doubling of production at Geita in 2007, as compared to 2006, and it is this scheduling that is currently being re-planned, it said.
In addition to ongoing mining at Geita Hill, Lone Cone and Matandani, immediate activity at Nyankanga pit includes regaining access to cutback 4 by cleaning up a haulage truck switchback and repositioning the related safety berm.
This remedial activity should take approximately one week. This will then enable access to the north-east side of the pit, where mining on cutback 4 can continue, whilst work begins on the redesign of mining activity on the south-west side of the pit, AngloGold Ashanti concluded.
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