News

January 29, 2009

Goldplat Finds Itself A Useful And Profitable Role In Africa’s Gold Industry

By Charles Wyatt

Aim-traded Goldplat, the gold recovery specialist, reported a creditable year to the end of June 2008 when it issued results back in September. Pre-tax profits more than doubled from £751,000 to £1.624 million, and cash in the bank increased to £1.486 million. Actually, on second thoughts that is not just creditable, it is the sort of performance that many chief executives among the exploration juniors would die for. Demetri Manolis, the chief executive of Goldplat, is modest about it, but in a way that indicates that he had no doubts that Goldplat would perform well last year, or that it will do a whole lot better in 2008/9. The kicker, of course, will be the Kilimapesa gold mine in Kenya, a 50:50 joint venture with the Swedish company International Gold, where production started last week. This project is on the northern extension of the prolific Lake Victoria gold field in Tanzania.

“We intend to expand our mining operations and it is a good time for us to be doing so as a lot of juniors with good projects close to production are running out of money and they do not have experience of developing or running a mine.” Demetri knows plenty about gold mining, as between 1989 and 1992 he was variously general manager and managing director of Consolidated Modderfontein Mines. Then for the next eight years he ran Gravelotte Mines, a privately owned underground gold mining company...