The ERPM Gold Project
The ERPM has a history of strong gold production with some 43 Moz produced from the mine to date. The FreePay mining team continues to develop a regional understanding of all the shallow reef packages in the East Rand with a view to optimizing gold production options. It is expected that further exploration of these shallow reefs will result in a significant increase of resource above the 51 Moz currently modeled.
The mine is situated on the East Rand Goldfield some 25km south east of Johannesburg, close to the town of Boksburg. The project is surrounded by surface gold tailings reclamation and processing operations operated by DRD Gold. View map >
The ERPM 3D sectional geological model shows the various reef packages available for mining on the East Rand, ranging from surface to more than 3,600 metres below surface. Historically, mining companies focused on the relatively high grade deep Main Reef. As indicated in the geological model, this leaves the Black Reef, Elsburg Reef and Kimberley Reef intact providing advanced exploration targets, with potential short lead times to gold production.
A number of early targets have been identified which are all shallow in the Wits Basin stratigraphic sequence. Exploration diamond drilling is likely to commence in H2 2019 to test these shallow reefs. Initial focus of the program will be resource definition within MR151. Although of a lower grade compared to the Main Reef, the shallow reefs are generally thicker and closer to the surface allowing faster time to production with reduced capital costs.