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Goldplat (LON:GDP) has made significant progress reducing its backlog of stocks and easing its problems with third party refiner Rand, it reported today.
The company, which recovers gold from waste from mining operations, said a new electric boiler had boosted the performance at its existing facilities to five tonnes of loaded carbon per day.
This higher throughput is expected to have a significant impact on the backlog of material waiting to be treated.
A new washing plant, meanwhile, has boosted the gold recovered from woodchip supplies by 2Kg per month.
Goldplat has also agreed to toll-process a large batch of material for Rand Refinery for which it will be paid treatment and refining charges.
This contract may run for six months and will utilise the existing high grade processing circuit.
Other material will be processed through a new low grade plant bought in March and this scheduled to be commissioned this month.
Because of Rand’s problems, Goldplat recently has either processed material itself or shipped it to Aurubis in Germany for smelting, but Rand is now starting to accept material again in its own right in small batches.
Gerard Kisbey-Green, Goldplat’s chief executive, added its new facilities would have an immediate positive impact on its flexibility and ultimately its profitability.
“Particularly satisfying is the fact that despite the cashflow problems experienced throughout the past 18 months, Goldplat has managed to, and continues to manage to finance strategic and essential capital projects internally,” he said.
“Regarding Rand Refinery, we are pleased that despite the challenges, the relationship between Goldplat and Rand Refinery is strong and that we continue to find mutually beneficial ways to work together."
Broker VSA Capital said: “Goldplat has announced positive progress on its capital projects and their immediate impact on operational efficiency.
“Operationally Goldplat appears to be well on track and we expect the improvements in efficiency and additional capacity to translate into a stronger year financially in FY 2016.”
Shares gained 8.9% to 2.415p today.