DRDGOLD’s attributable Mineral Resources increased by 6% from 56.4Moz
in FY009 to 60.0Moz in FY2010. Attributable Mineral Reserves increased
by 21% from 6.0Moz in 2009 to 7.3Moz in 2010.
The rise in attributable Mineral Resources can mainly be ascribed to
the underground operations at Blyoor. The underground block modelling
process benefited from a good deal of attention and areas available for
furture mining were all scrutinised and changed where required. The
other operations all had lesser amounts of movement due to normal
depletions and reconciliations.
The reason for the increase in DRDGOLD’s Mineral Reserves was the
more favourable gold price used for declaration compared with that for
the previous year. Of the total reserve increase, 15.7% was owing to the
higher gold price, which resulted in a more favourable pay limit and
thus in a larger portion of the underground resource becoming available
for mining at Blyvoor. This, along with new solutions to past deposition
challenges, also contributed to a 7.8% increase in reserves at Crown.
Normal monthly depletions and reconciliations explain any decreases at
the operations.