Raub regaining lustre as gold mine under RM60m investment

By Gan Yen Kuan fd@bizedge.com

Raub, once a thriving gold mine in Pahang, is set to regain its lustre under London-listed Peninsular Gold Ltd’s RM60 million investment to build a hi-tech gold processing plant.

The Malaysian-controlled company, via its unit Raub Australian Gold Mining Sdn Bhd, has mining rights on a 202ha of land in Raub, with proven tailings reserves of 180,000 ounces.

Peninsular Gold chairman and chief executive Datuk Seri Andrew Kam said on March 2 the company’s target was to extract 100,000 ounces of gold a year. There are also plans for further RM150-million investment.

He was speaking to reporters at the groundbreaking ceremony for the plant. The RM60-million plant will be financed from borrowings and equity and it can process 1.1 million tonnes of tailings to produce 25,000 ounces of gold a year.

The plant, scheduled to be completed in 12 months, will use the carbon-in-leach (CIL) technology to extract gold from tailings – residues left behind by earlier miners who used traditional gravity methods of gold extraction.

Kam said the CIL technology, which had been used worldwide over 30 years, enable miners to recover up to 85% of gold from the tailings compared with 15% under the traditional gravity method.

According to World Gold Council, the world produced 2,467 tonnes of gold in 2006, while total demand stood at 3,362 tonnes. Gold prices are now hovering around US$660 (RM2315) per ounce.

Peninsular Gold posted a net loss of 1.44 million sterling pounds (RM9.88 million) for the 14-month financial period ended June 30, 2006. Kam said he hoped the company would start making profits in two-and-a-half years once the plant starts operations.

He said Peninsular Gold had been working with the Pahang State Development Corporation over the past 10 years to unearth for more gold mines in the state, including the Bentong-Raub area.

“We are very confident there is a lot of gold. We just need to continue our exploration. Proven reserves are 180,000 ounces, which we are going to mine immediately,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob said the investments by Peninsular Gold would create a spin-off effect for the district’s economy.

Raub produced over one million ounces of gold in the past 100 years. Royalties collected by the state government from gold mining companies totalled RM6.15 million in 2005 and RM11.62 million in 2006. There are 44 mining certificate holders in the state, 31 of which are for gold mining.