Synterra Assets is building a portfolio of Above-Ground Gold resources across Southern Africa, recovering residual gold from material processed by previous generations of miners.
Traditional gold mining begins with geological uncertainty. An orebody must be discovered, drilled, modelled and accessed. Substantial capital may be required for shafts, declines, underground development, drilling, blasting, ventilation, ground support and ore transportation before a single tonne reaches the processing plant.
Above-Ground Gold starts at the surface. The mining has already occurred. Synterra's challenge is different: determine how much material exists, establish its residual gold grade, demonstrate metallurgical recovery and determine whether that gold can be recovered economically.
This creates a fundamentally different risk profile from conventional mining.
Explore → Discover → Drill → Define → Develop → Access → Mine → Crush → Process → Recover
Verify → Reclaim → Process → Recover → Rehabilitate
That shortened development chain is central to the Synterra investment thesis.
Synterra principally assumes resource-verification, metallurgical, processing and project-execution risk rather than the complete spectrum of geological development and orebody-access risks associated with conventional mining.
We are not financing exploration in the hope of discovering an orebody. The material already exists at surface and can be surveyed, drilled, sampled and independently assayed before major development capital is committed.
There is generally no requirement to develop deep underground shafts or declines simply to access the resource. The material has already been extracted.
Conventional underground mining introduces rock-mechanics, ground-support, ventilation, seismic and underground water-management challenges. Above-Ground Gold substantially changes this operating environment.
The principal technical question becomes: can the contained gold be economically recovered using modern processing technology? This allows investment decisions to concentrate upon measurable variables including tonnage, grade, recovery, throughput, processing cost and gold price.
Synterra does not describe Above-Ground Gold as risk-free mining. Tailings projects remain subject to significant technical and commercial risks.
Grades must be independently established. Mineralogy can be complex. Metallurgical recovery must be demonstrated. Processing plants must perform. Water and power must be secured. Environmental obligations must be satisfied. Ownership must be legally enforceable and projects must remain profitable through changing gold-price environments.
Above-Ground Gold concentrates investment analysis upon a smaller group of increasingly measurable variables. This is why independent technical verification sits at the centre of the Synterra model.
Synterra Assets is a specialist Southern African gold-tailings investment and development company. Our strategy is based upon acquiring and developing large-scale legacy tailings resources where historic processing inefficiency has left economically recoverable gold behind.
Southern Africa is particularly suited to this strategy. South Africa's historic gold industry created enormous quantities of surface tailings, and commercial retreatment is already established at industrial scale. Zimbabwe provides a complementary opportunity, combining an extensive history of gold production with numerous legacy deposits potentially suitable for modern recovery.
Synterra brings together mining operations, metallurgy, resource evaluation, acquisitions, project finance and investment structuring to convert selected deposits into investable gold-producing assets.
Our model is straightforward: Acquire. Verify. Recover. Rehabilitate. Each step is disciplined by the requirement that the economics must work before the next phase of capital is committed.
Identify large-scale tailings resources with credible ownership, suitable location and preliminary evidence of commercially interesting gold content.
Establish tonnage and grade through professional surveying, drilling, sampling, independent laboratory analysis and internationally recognised resource reporting where appropriate.
Determine the optimal metallurgical flowsheet and develop processing infrastructure around demonstrated recovery economics.
Progressively remove historic tailings deposits, responsibly manage processed material and rehabilitate legacy mining footprints wherever practicable. Above-Ground Gold creates an unusual alignment between investment and environmental objectives.
Synterra brings together senior professionals from mining, mineral processing, project development, acquisitions, investment management and structured resource finance.
Meet the Team