Illegal miners at Obause mine numbers drop - AngloGold

Mining giant AngloGold Ashanti has renewed its call on the government, to clear the rest illegal miners occupying its Obuase mine.

According to Stewart Bailey Senior Vice President in charge of Investor Relations and Group Communications at AngloGold Ashanti though the government has shown some commitment with a plan to move the illegal miners, the company wishes the process could be faster.

Stewart Bailey disclosed to the media in South Africa that illegal miners who had occupied the Obuasi mine were slowly leaving the site with the military having returned to the mine.

The AngloGold Obuase mine since Febuary this year (2016) had over 3,000 of illegal miners taking over the mine which had halted production in 2014 when falling gold prices made it uneconomic to access new and deep-lying reserves.

Owners of the mine AngloGold Ashanti had since 2014 have been hoping to attract new investors or complete a study on how much it would cost to bring the mine back to life.

Moves to revamp the Obuasi gold mine hit a snag following the pullout of mining firm Randgol which had entered into a joint venture to revamp the Obuasi mine to a world-class high-grade mine.

The deal between the two mining companies if was successful would have led to the revamping of the Obuasi mine which is currently under going a number of challenges.

AngloGold Ashanti at the end of 2014, converted the Obuasi mine to limited operations ceasing underground production, a move that led to the dismissal of thousands of its workforce.

According to the Stewart Bailey"the illegal miners are slowly leaving ... There is still a significant number of them on the site albeit far less than there was before and we hope the government will have the plan continued to have all of these miners move out of the fenced area"

"The government ordered the military to return in mid-October. And that has been a very pain-staking process and one that we support," he said.

Meanwhile AngloGold Ashanti saw a significant jump in its cash flow to 161 million dollars, further improving its net debt position in the third-quarter of this year.

By the end of the third quater of this year the freecash flow was 161 million dollars, before the 30 million dollars one-off cost incurred for the early repayment of its high-yield bond, which is the Company’s most expensive debt ever incurred.

The free cash flow generation has been sais to be significant improvement on what was reported same period in 2015 which was 50 million dolars and 49% more than the 108 million dollars generated in the first half of this year.