A number of insignificant gold deposits were discovered in the northern parts of South Africa between 1840 and 1870. The first gold rush in South Africa took place in 1873 when payable gold was discovered on the farm Geelhoutboom near the town of Sabie approximately 35 km from Pilgrims Rest and in September 1873 Pilgrims Rest was officially proclaimed a goldfield.

The gold that the early diggers targeted was alluvial gold – mainly gold dust recovered by washing the gravel from the beds and banks of streams but nuggets were also found. The largest recorded nugget from the Pilgrims Rest area was the Breda Nugget, weighing in at 214 oz (more than 6 kg).

Early prospectors in the Sabie-Pilgrims Rest Goldfield successfully traced sub-crops of the different reef horizons along strike where they were not obscured by slumped strata, although mining continued from the 1880s until 1972.

The TGME Project portfolio has more than 43 historical mines across the large tenement area of 62,000 hectares. In addition to the 6 Moz in resources, the area has a number of underexplored old mines and shallow exploration targets containing gold-bearing ore left over from almost a century of mining. Over 6.7Moz was recovered historically (Figure 2), and we believe a lot more than that can be found in the tenements.

We believe much of this can be accessed by reopening existing shallow-angle haulages and adits, or in some cases, open-cut mining of the upper gold reefs near surface.

Historically, the region was so rich in resources and easy targets that when mining became difficult, the early miners just left to pursue other areas. Over a century later, modern mining techniques and high-powered machinery for open-cut, combined with accurate laser surveying, resource modelling and modern processing technology will allow us to explore and develop these old prospects and mines.

In addition to these well defined and low-risk targets, the Company also has the benefit of owning an existing carbon in leach (CIL) treatment plant built in the 1980’s. We intend to refurbish and add new components to expand the plant to enable rapid ramp-up of production across the whole project.

Our past focus was on underground mining. However, the latest strategy is to delineate high grade open cut resources, which have a lower risk profile, as they are faster to develop than underground deposits and less capital intensive.

Contact: +27 13 768 1271

Address: PTN 562k,t Grootfontein Farm,Pilgrim’s Rest,1290

Website: www.thetagoldmines.com