[miningmx.com] – GOLD One international is to buy First Uranium
Corporation’s Ezulwini shaft and resources for $70m in cash in a transaction that will
refashion Gold One into a fully-fledged gold and uranium producer.
In terms of an announcement to the Australian and Canadian stock exchanges on
Friday and at the weekend, Gold One said that it would, on completion of the deal,
seek to extract synergies between its recently purchased Cooke shaft and Ezulwini.
Gold One bought Cooke shaft in South Africa’s West-Rand town of Randfontein last
year from Rand Uranium, including that company’s uranium resources, which was
Gold One’s first foray into uranium.
The deal with First Uranium sets up Gold International as a company that is
strategically exposed to gold and uranium markets; it gives signal, as if any were
needed, of Gold One CEO Neal Froneman’s intention return to uranium – a commodity
in which he trail-blazed several years ago as boss of Uranium One.
Said Froneman: “This acquisition is aligned to our business strategy of value-accretive
growth and is a key component in the realisation of synergies across the Cooke
underground and Randfontein surface operations’. He described the synergies in
terms of Gold One International’s “co-product strategy’.
In support of the transaction, Froneman said that Ezulwini was a project on which
some $400m had largely been spent. However, Gold One would now focus on building
an appropriately sized operation, which would build on synergies on the next door
Cooke shaft.
Ezulwini comprises a new gold plant with nameplate capacity of 2.4 million tonnes
annually, and a new uranium plant in place with simple, proven uranium technology
and nameplate capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per year, the company said in its
announcement.
Last year, Ezulwini sold 59,689 ounces of gold and produced 31,407 pounds of
uranium. It also has more than 13.2 million tonnes of measured and indicated
mineral resources containing 2.7 million ounces of gold, 6.6 million pounds of uranium
and 159 million tonnes of inferred mineral resources containing 25.5 million ounces of
gold and 189 million pounds of uranium, the company said.
Gold One will take complete management control over the Ezulwini asset on
completion of the deal, which also includes a $10m loan to First Uranium Corporation;
deductible from the acquisition price and on condition of concluding a deal with
AngloGold Ashanti in which First Uranium sells its Mine Waste Solutions and
associated gold and uranium resources.
