Latest developments

26

2025

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07

Old mines and gold waste power surge in Pan African’s shares

The best-performing South African miner this year is defying the country’s contemporary reputation for ever-more costly and lower-grade gold production.


The best-performing South African miner this year is defying the country’s contemporary reputation for ever-more costly and lower-grade gold production.

 

Pan African Resources Plc extracts the precious metal from waste dumps, known as tailings, left behind by decades of mining when South Africa was the world’s biggest gold producer. It’s also operating century-old underground shafts around Barberton, the site of the country’s first gold rush in the 1880s.

 

The stock has gained 94% in Johannesburg this year, more than triple the return of the next-best miner, Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd. It’s up by a similar amount in London, where it is listed on the Alternative Investment Market. The shares rose 0.3% in Johannesburg on Tuesday, hovering near the record high set earlier this month.

 

A gold price that’s been smashing through record after record – surging 27% since the start of the year and hitting an all-time high of $2,790.10 an ounce on Oct. 31 – has helped. Larger players haven’t scaled the same heights, partly because rising operational costs and weaker output across extensive global assets have offset the windfall of higher prices.