Blyvoor

Blyvoor, which mined its first ore in 1942, is situated on the north-western edge of South Africa's Witwatersrand Basin, to the south of the town of Carletonville and 70km south-west of Johannesburg, in North West Province. The mine has both underground mining and surface tailings retreatment operations and a carbon-in-leach gold plant with the capacity to treat some 400 000tpm.

Blyvoor has two main gold-bearing horizons: the Carbon Leader Reef (CLR), which is one of the principal orebodies of the Carletonville goldfield; and the Main Reef, which is some 75m above the CLR horizon. The reefs vary in thickness from 5cm to 20cm. Recently there has been a shift in focus to mining the Main Reef for greater flexibility. Although not as consistent in grade, the Main Reef is less seismically active, offers greater potential for higher volumes and maintained real cost, and can be accessed through development of the mine’s existing infrastructure.

Ore is mined from three underground shaft systems using the traditional narrow-reef, drill, blast and scape methods.

Gold recovered from surface tailings retreatment accounts for approximately 27% of Blyvoor’s total production.

While Blyvoor's life of mine is projected until 2030, its resource is widespread and production could extend for many years beyond this, depending on gold price and exchange rate performance.

Mining from the Way Ahead Project (formerly known as Phase 2 of the No 2 Sub-shaft Project) – to access the orebody between 27 and 35 levels from No 5 Shaft – began in the first week of October 2008. During FY2010, mining ramp-up continued towards the 2 500m²/pm target, and by year end had reached some 1 75m²/pm.

Blyvoor: Underground plan

Blyvoor: Key statistics FY2010

		FY2010	FY2009
Ore milled
Underground	t’000	633	603
Surface	t’000	2 968	3 433
Total	t’000	3 601	4 036
Yield
Underground	g/t	3.79	4.59
Surface	g/t	0.31	0.37
Total	g/t	0.92	1.00
Gold produced
Underground	oz	77 226	88 898
	kg	2 402	2 765
Surface	oz	29 226	40 575
	kg	909	1 262
Total	oz	106 452	129 473
	kg	3 311	4 027
Cash operating costs
Underground	US$ per oz	1 327	878
	R per kg	324 736	255 517
	R per tonne	1 232	1 172
Surface	US$ per oz	444	337
	R per kg	108 771	98 124
	R per tonne	33	36
Total	US$ per oz	1085	709
	R per kg	265 445	206 191
	R per tonne	244	206
Gold and silver revenue	(US$ million)	113.2	112.6
	(R million)	861.4	1 018.5
Cash operating profit	US$ million	2.1	20.8
	R million	16.3	188.2
Capital expenditure (net)	US$ million	10.5	10.7
	R million	79.6	97.2