AngloGold Ashanti

Source: Energy Digital

Date :3/17/2008 12:32:21 PM

A company in the heart of the world’s gold supply, at the heart of AngloGold Ashanti is stewardship: with efforts to create value for its customers, employees and the communities it serves

Written by Rebecca Waters and produced by Nick Ledue

AngloGold Ashanti originates from the heart of gold, Johannesburg a city founded as a result of the Witwatersrand Gold Rush which resulted in the discovery of some of the largest gold deposits the world has ever seen.

With such a set-up, it is no surprise AngloGold Ashanti has grown to become one of the world’s largest gold producers, operating on four continents.

AngloGold Ashanti was formed, following a merger between AngloGold Limited (AngloGold) and Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited (Ashanti) back in April 2004. AngloGold, formerly Vaals Reefs Exploration and Mining Company Limited, was incorporated in South Africa in 1944.

The company’s primary listing in Johannesburg is on the JSE (ANG). It is also listed on New York (AU), London (AGG), Australia (AGG) and Ghana (AGA) as well as Euronext Paris (VA) and Euronext Brussels (ANG).

Sustainable operations

AngloGold Ashanti’s 21 operations, ranging from deep-level hard-rock mining to open pit mining, are located in ten countries (Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Naimbia, South Africa, Tanzania and the United States), and are supported by extensive exploration activities. These include both Brownfields and Greenfields, as well as research, development and downstream marketing initiatives.

In 2006, the company spent $103 million on exploration split between Brownfields exploration, aimed at sustaining or expanding existing operations, and Greenfields, aimed at discovering new gold deposits.

One of the current Greenfields programs that AngloGold Ashanti is focused on is the Tropicana Project, a joint venture between AngloGold Ashanti and Independence Group NL in Western Australia. Regarded to be the most significant gold discovery in Western Australia for a considerable time, The Tropicana JV comprises approximately 12,260 km2 of largely unexplored tenure over a strike length of 350km along the Yilgarn Craton - Fraser Range Mobile Belt Collision Zone.

Initially targeted and pegged by International Group in 2001, AngloGold Ashanti was brought in to fund and manage exploration due to the resources required to effectively explore this very large and remote tenement package.

Alongside the Tropicana Project, AngloGold Ashanti is also currently working on Greenfields projects in Columbia and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While joint ventures and other partnerships facilitate additional Greenfields exploration in Russia, China, Laos and the Philippines.

The market for Gold

Since the 1880s, South Africa has been the source for a large proportion of the world’s gold supply, with about 50 percent of all gold ever produced having come from South Africa.

Gold is used mainly for fabrication purposes, of which the gold jewellery market accounts for almost 80 percent. As well as hosting country projects of a downstream development nature, AngloGold Ashanti has initiated and developed an annual gold jewellery design competition called AuDITIONS, which is now in its eighth year.

Established in 1999 under the name of Riches of Africa, AuDITIONS South Africa is a platform which ‘encourages designers to become performers,’ says the company. Currently the AuDITIONS family comprises of South Africa, Brazil, India and China, with a Middle Eastern competition which will be added soon.

The competition is one of AngloGold Ashanti’s independent marketing initiatives in the area of jewellery design alongside its work with the World Gold Council (WGC). In 2006, the company’s marketing program, both on its own and in collaboration with the WGC, of which it was a founding member, was aimed at increasing the desirability of the metal, sustaining and growing demand, and supporting the deregulation of the gold market in certain key economies.

AngloGold Ashanti’s individual market development activities centre on strategic projects undertaken in ‘key and critical’ gold jewellery offtake markets in the USA, India, China, Italy and the Middle East.

Stewardship

“At the heart AngloGold Ashanti is the idea of being a good steward: that is to take the resources we command and use them to create value – for our owners, our employees and the communities in which we operate,” said former CEO Bobby Godsell in early 2007.

This approach is still feasible over a year later. The main priority for 2008 is to reinforce further the company’s ‘Safety is our First Value’ campaign, which AngloGold Ashanti launched last November.

The campaign was undertaken jointly with organised labour and government representatives, together with associated campaigns at each of AngloGold Ashanti’s South African business units.

“I am…pleased with the improving record in safety performance that we have started to see following the launch of our Safety is our First Value campaign…As a result, these operations have started to experience an encouraging improvement in safety performance,” said Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive Officer, AngloGold Ashanti on announcing fiscal 2007 results.

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