The current revenue streams for Evander Mines are generated from the Evander 8 Shaft and surface sources. The principal economical horizon mined at Evander Mines is the Kimberley Reef, which was deposit in the Witwatersrand sedimentary basin, ca 2300 million years ago.

The Evander 8 Shaft is situated about 5 km north-west of the town of Evander. It covers an area of 44 km2. It sits between Rolspruit to the north-west and 7 Shaft to the south-east. Mining occurs in the No. 2 Decline area on the western side, at a depth of 2 100 m to 2 300 m below surface.

Evander 8 Shaft is situated in the distal part of the Evander Basin. The Kimberley Reef is the only economical horizon that is mined. The Kimberley Reef is situated stratigraphically in the lower part of the Turffontein Subgroup, which is in the upper portion of the Central Rand Group. The Kimberley Reef presents the distal facies of a fluvial placer that was deposited by a system of braided-streams. Evander 8 Shaft is currently mining the western high-grade area of the Kinross Payshoot, a payshoot that extents for over 17 km from the south-east to the north-west of the basin.

The reef is an oligomictic, pebbly conglomerate and comprises a composite sequence of channel-sediments that define longitudinal gravel bars and sand bars with pebbly veneers. The reef in the No. 2 Decline area strikes in an east-west direction and dips to the north at about 10 degrees. The area is also divided by two major normal faults, striking in an east-north-east to west-south-west direction. The reef thickness varies from a waste on contact (WOC) up to a 50 cm well-developed oligomictic conglomerate. Average reef thickness is about 35 cm. High gold values in the Kimberley Reef are mostly located at the base of the unit, and are associated with the presence of carbon and some visible gold on the footwall contact.

Surface resources are a cleaning-up operation of old waste rock dumps, footprints of old metallurgical plants and other material containing gold.

Evander Mines (Leslie, Bracken and Kinross Mines) exploits the Kimberley Reef in the Evander basin, part of the greater Witwatersrand basin. Mining methods employed during 2017/2018 are underground conventional scraper mining and rail bound equipment with some trackless mechanised development (underground mining operations ceased on 31 May 2018). With 8 Shaft at a depth of 2.5km, it took the workforce approximately an hour to reach the mining area via a lift and locomotive and two chairlifts. The rock is transported along 11 conveyors from the rock face to the bottom of 7 Shaft from where it was hoisted to surface.

Evander Mines’ 8 Shaft pillar will replace the current remnant underground mining and vamping production and is expected to contribute, on average, 30,000oz per annum over the next three financial years, with approximately 20,000oz forecast for the 2020 financial year.

Mining occurrs in the 2 Decline area on the western side at a depth of 2,300m to 2,500m below surface, as well as the development of the 8 Shaft pillar at a depth of 1,600m below surface.

Pillar to be mined at a rate of 11.5ktpm at an average grade in excess of 7g/t during steady state.

Evander 8 Shaft mining method is footwall development to reef horizon and then developing on reef horizon (raise). The mining follows an upside down Christmas tree sequence to extract the reef horizon. Old areas of the mine are also cleaned up by means of vamping activities.

Evander Mines’ No 8 Shaft is currently mining on levels 24 and 25 and Rolspruit is merely the extension of the No 8 Shaft mining area, from 26 to 29 Level and to an approximate depth of three kilometres at the deepest point. Rolspruit can potentially be mined with additional development from 26 Level to 18 Level with an inter-linking sub-vertical shaft designed for employees and material, which could use the existing shaft systems of No 8 Shaft and No 7 Shaft. The operation would require a new shaft to exploit the full extent of the available orebody. The Rolspruit mineral resource is 9.0Moz at 11.82g/t with a mineral reserve of 6.5Moz at 8.60g/t, potentially producing 200,000oz – 300,000oz of gold per annum.

Elikhulu and Evander Tailings Retreatment Plant (ETRP) operation, now termed Elikhulu. During December 2018, the ETRP circuit wasincorporated into Elikhulu to ensure more efficient recoveries of gold from the tailings being processed for the next 13 years and also to reduce unit costs of production going forward.

Retreats gold plant tailings at a rate of 1.2 million tonnes per month (including the combined throughput of ETRP).

Combined hydraulic mining will produce 1.16 Mtpm (0.2 Mtpm to ETRP and 0.96 Mtpm to Elikhulu together with the 0.04 Mtpm of RoM tailings, Elikhulu total throughput is 1 Mtpm).

The Evander Gold Plant treats ore from Evander No. 8 Shaft and old tailings etc.

There are six SAG mills operating in closed circuit with a hydro cyclone. A portion of the cyclone underflow is directed to Knelson centrifugal concentrators for the recovery of free gold. There is one Knelson concentrator for every two milling units. The milled product is nominally 80% passing 75 microns. The mill section is noncyanide exposed as it utilises non contaminated underground water for dilution and gland service water.

The cyclone overflow is directed, via linear screens, to five thickeners (of which two are utilised for the current throughput). The thickened pulp is transferred to the leach, CIP/CIL, circuit via a surge tank into which liquid sodium cyanide is added. The leach configuration is based on one surge tank, two leach tanks, four CIL tanks and seven leach tanks. Eight of the fourteen flat bottomed tanks are air agitated and six are mechanically agitated. Oxygen ........