JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Gold recovery company Goldplat, the South African operations of which generated an operating profit in the three months to September 30, is taking steps to diversify into platinum group metal (PGM) recovery.

The London, Aim-listed company, which serves companies including AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold and Gold Fields, recovers bullion from mining process items that include mill liners, wood chips, fine carbon and sludges.

With PGM-recovery trials scheduled for completion by year-end, Goldplat sees diversification into platinum as its next big growth step, which will be carried out at the same time as the gold recovery service is expanded internationally, boosted by recent ‘responsible gold’ accreditation.

“We are able to account for every ounce of gold,” Goldplat COO Hansie van Vreden says in a video interview, which can be viewed on the company’s website.

As part of its service, the company removes and transports the waste at no charge, extracts profit from it for the gold companies served – and, at the same time, realises a profit for itself, albeit with considerable difficulty currently, owing to the low gold price and also having to report in pound sterling from revenues in far weaker South African and Ghanaian currencies.

In South Africa, Goldplat is working on alternative metallurgical processes to increase its cash position, which deteriorated in the three months to September 30.

In Ghana, where it is located in the free tax zone at the Port of Tema, it is in the process of submitting a revised environmental management plan to the Environmental Protection Agency, which will assist in retriggering its toll-processing agreement with Endeavour Resources.

The company’s small gold mining and exploration portfolio takes in the Kilimapesa gold project, in Kenya, where a joint venture partnership is expected to be concluded before year-end, and projects in Ghana and Burkina Faso, where it is also licensed to carry out gold-recovery services.

Van Vreden says on video that Goldplat’s loss of £694 000 in the six months to December 31 – its first – was turned into profit of £850 000 in the six months to June 30, which enabled the company to post an operating profit of £156 000 for its 2014 financial year.