Trend towards reverse leach process

The South African gold mining industry is making notable strides in improving recovery methods for both gold and uranium with significant additions to profits because of higher efficiencies and reductions in costs in the recovery processes. The most notable step on the gold side recently is the adoption of the reverse leach process at Buffelsfontein and Western Deep Levels. This process was pioneered at Hartebeesfontein as far back as 1975 and when introduced there resulted in a two and a half per cent improvement in recovery efficiencies. The essence of reverse leaching under which the uranium is recovered before the gold is the fact that the gold partly coated with iron oxide or locked in uranite, is exposed to be recovered later by cyanidation