DRDGOLD is in early stage planning to expand internationally by establishing partnerships with miners interested in mining tailings.
CEO Niël Pretorius said this week his company’s plans would be implemented after completing a R7.8bn expansion of its South African operations called Vision 2028. “We need to do something beyond that,” he said.
Commenting in the firm’s annual report ths week, DRDGOLD chair Tim Cumming and Pretorius said the strategy was to partner with mature primary mines to return tailings below surface into open-cut pits “enabling faster and more responsible closure”.
“We could be a capital partner, or we could just be your agent. But we want to deliver a particular result, and we want to use your tailings to do that,” said Pretorius. “We’re not going to be buying loads of second-tier assets and call it growth. That’s not our model.”
“We don’t see growth in buying dumps in the middle of nowhere,” said Pretorius, adding however that the company also saw potential to continue working with majority shareholder Sibanye-Stillwater.
Richard Stewart, CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater, told Miningmx in October his company could buy more shares in DRDGOLD. “If anything, I’d like more exposure to DRDGOLD at some point in time,” said Stewart.
Stewart said the group’s strategy is to grow its tailings reprocessing and surface production which includes the gold and uranium Cook assets in the far west of Johannesburg.
“There’s still loads that we could do within the Sibanye group,” said Pretorius. “You’ve heard what Richard Stewart said that we’re probably one of the more under-utilised investments. From our perspective, we want to do more of that within the group and then also outside of the group in the rest of the world,” he said.
One of the factors supporting DRDGOLD’s growth strategy is modern environmental legislation forbade selling off mature mines with large rehabilitation liabilities. “The days of offloading mature assets and then having other people finish up the rehabilitation, it’s just no longer done,” said Pretorius.
“You could offload it to some start-up and then it turns into a big mess after a few years, and then you’ve got to go back,” he said. “So more and more we think the time’s right for this sort of thing, and we can offer this solution.”
The gold tailings miner plans to extend operations previously deemed non-viable at its flagship Ergo facilities to beyond 2040. It has also embarked on the second phase expansion of its Far West Gold Recoveries operation.
All in all, the company spent R2.2bn in capital expenditure during its 2025 financial year as part of Vision 2028.
