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On 26th April 2007 Mintails Limited (ASX : MLI) and DRDGOLD Limited (NASDAQ: DROOY; JSE: DRD) announced reaching an agreement on the formation of a joint venture company now called West Wits Mining Limited (West Wits) to explore, evaluate and potentially extract gold and uranium from the Company's Project Areas located on the West Rand Goldfield of South Africa's Witwatersrand Basin.
West Wits listed on the ASX through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the 19th December 2007 and raised A$15 million.
The Witwatersrand Basin is regarded as one of the largest mineralised gold and uranium systems in the world and is widely known for its rich, continuous multiple reef ore-bodies. The reefs contained within the Project Area include features such as outcropping reef, untested virgin sections of reef, reefs open at depth and remnant pillars within the historical workings. West Wits entered into a contract to acquire prospecting and mining rights from DRDGOLD Limited, Mintails Limited and Geotorm Investments Limited. These rights, held through subsidiaries, comprise the historical leases of Rand Leases, Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD) Lease, East Champ D'Or Lease, Luipaardsvlei Lease, West Rand Consolidated Lease and West Wits Lease. These leases collectively produced 61.4 million ounces of gold and 37 million pounds of uranium over the past 120 years.
The Company's exploration program is investigating three types of exploration targets: near surface resource targets (less than 70m below surface) with open cut mining potential; unmined reefs with underground mining potential, particularly at shallow depths; and underground remnant pillar recovery potential remaining from historical mining activities.
The Company is initially focused on creating early cashflow from a number of its near surface gold targets which may be conducive to shallow opencut mining operations. Currently West Wits has four near surface targets which achieved an aggregate predominately inferred JORC resource of 468,000 ounces at 1.82 g/t. As the Company begins to develop these near surface targets, its exploration program will systematically progress to the Company’s more substantial underground targets.
West Wits has produced a conceptual exploration target for the Company’s lease portfolio of; 3.95-5.20 million ounces of gold, and 17-22 million pounds of uranium. West Wits has access to historical mining data, some of which dates back to initial activities in the region over 100 years ago. The Company continues to review this historical data which has led to a number of new targets being indentified. The Company has currently reviewed and scanned 19,000 maps and plans and continues to log these into a 3D model.
West Wits has achieved a number of significant resource milestones since the beginning of 2009. The Company is encouraged with the progress it has made on its exploration program over the last 12 months which included identifying prospective targets, investigating 8 of 14 of those targets (through 25.3kms of drilling) and developing JORC resources at four of those targets; the Emerald, Princess, Marquise and Radiant Targets.
The Emerald, Princess and Marquise Targets were considered prospective for near surface gold mineralisation that may be amenable to open cut mining operations. These targets were tested as possible pathways to early cash flow, through an open cut operation, before the sustained investigation of deeper more substantial exploration targets begins.
The Company has announced four separate JORC resource statements since the beginning of 2009. Near surface JORC resources have been achieved at the Emerald, Princess and Marquise Targets, whilst the Radiant Target provided the first resources at an unmined ‘virgin’ section of Kimberley Reef on Rand Leases. The combined resources at these four targets delivered a JORC gold resource of 468,000 ounces at an average grade of 1.82g/t.
With these four resources now established, West Wits has elected to focus its endeavours towards the Emerald Resource. The Princess Resource will now be assessed as part of the Emerald Resource. It is the Company’s intention to bring this resource into production before the end of 2009.
The Radiant and Raptor Targets were investigated for gold and uranium mineralisation respectively, from ‘virgin’ reefs which begin at surface and remain open at depth. These targets were identified through the continuing review of historical mine plans and maps of the Company’s leases, and form substantial components of the Company’s aggregate conceptual target statement of 3.95-5.20 million ounces of gold and 17-22 million pounds of uranium.

| Michael Quinert | Chairman |
| Grant Ferguson | Executive Director |
| Diederik van der Walt | Non-executive Director |
| Niel Pretorius | Non-executive Director |
| Senior Management | |
| Louis Roos | General Manager - South Africa |
Company AddressSuite 1, 1233 High Street
|
Capital78,850,000 Fully paid ordinary shares
|
Year End30 June |
Nominated BrokersBell Potter Securities Limited | Nominated AdvisorsPeregrine Corporate Limited |
| Shareholder | Holding | % |
| MINTAILS LTD | 33,750,000 | 27.72% |
| GEOTORM INV LTD | 7,500,000 | 6.16% |
| AMN NOMINEES LTD | 6,313,552 | 5.19% |
| JP MORGAN NOM AUST LTD | 6,207,041 | 5.10% |
| LSAF HOLDINGS PTY LTD | 4,000,000 | 3.29% |