Mintails (MLI)

Shares / Stock Code

MLI

Stock Exchange / Sharemarket

ax

Mintails (MLI) name is a direct description of its underlying activities, which are the development, processing and production of gold and potentially uranium and sulphuric acid from "mining tailings" located on the West and East Rand areas of the Witwatersrand Basin, near Johannesburg, South Africa. Apart from its 100% owned Mogale Projects on the West Rand Mintails also holds a 50% interest in the ERGO Mines Joint Venture with DRDGold Limited in respect to substantial tailings resources located on the East Rand. The ERGO JV owns the rights to process over 1.5 billion tonnes of tailings materials on the East Rand.

Gold mining first commenced in the Witwatersrand Basin in 1886 and has since produced over 50,000 tonnes (1.7 billion ounces) of gold. This represents over 40% of the world's gold production. The massive multi-million tonne tailings deposits, which line the outskirts of Johannesburg, are the remnants of over a century of deep underground and open cast mining.

Mintails through a merger with Skeat Gold Mining (Pty) Ltd (SGM) in December 2006 acquired the two gold and uranium processing plants which constituted the former tailings reclamation operation, ERGO (the former AngloGold Ashanti owned East Rand Gold and Uranium Operations). ERGO was at the time of operation the world's largest gold and uranium tailings operation, located on the Witswatersrand Basin. The major portion of these assets now form the ERGO Mining Joint Venture project with DRDGold Limited.

Mintails History

Mintails completed its initial capital raising of $12 million on 19 December 2005 and subsequently re-listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on 23 December 2005. The Company is an Australian listed public company with management and operations in South Africa.

The initial funds were raised for the purchase of the West Rand Gold Project, a gold tailings processing project with significant tailings resources approximately 70 kms outside Johannesburg, South Africa. The funds were applied to financing the refurbishment of the Mogale gold plant which allowed for re-commencement of gold recovery from the tailings dumps located on the West Rand goldfield.

West Rand Gold Project

The West Rand Gold Project is a regional gold and potential uranium and sulphuric acid play. It was planned that once production was established the Company would significantly increase the scale of activities through a Stage 2 upgrade and expansion of the Mogale operations. This was to be accomplished by raising additional funds (estimated at $50million at the time) to construct a second leach circuit and beneficiation plant to substantially boost both production and gold recoveries as well as to pursue other projects in South Africa of a similar size and nature.

Mogale Gold Plant Project

The Mogale Gold Plant was established in 1991/2 to treat 100,000 tonnes per month of ore from open pits and 20,000 tonnes per month of ore from underground mining to produce around 6,000 ounces of gold per month. The plant was subsequently upgraded and modified to increase capacity for the processing of tailings.

After securing agreement from SAEDF and the judicial manager Mintails commenced its upgrade and recommissioning of the plant during mid January 2006 and by late April 2006 had commenced minerals processing of slimes. The Company announced its first commercial gold production for the month of July 2006.