Refining of Gold at the Rand Refinery

10.2 Historical Development In the early days of South African gold mining, the crude bullion produced had to be shipped to London for refining. The concept of a local refinery had been considered for several years before the first positive step was taken in 1909, when the Transvaal Chamber of Mines founded the Witwatersrand Co-operative Smelting Works, to treat the gold and silver bearing by-products from reduction works. These by-products required special treatment and were obviously best handled by a central, joint concern under the sponsorship of the Chamber. Later, in 1917, the South African government proposed the establishment of a local mint and consequently the Pretoria branch of the London Royal Mint was opened in 1922. During the same period the Transvaal Chamber of Mines investigated the possibility of establishing a local gold refinery. The technical aspects were discussed with Sir T.K. Rose, a leading authority on gold metallurgy, and the chlorine refining process was chosen specifically with a view to the rapid and effective treatment of large amounts of bullion. This process had been patented by F.B. Miller, Assayer of the Sydney Mint, in 1867 and used in Australia since 1872 in contrast to the London and continental refineries which were still using the sulphuric acid (parting) process. On 27 November 1920, Rand Refinery Limited was registered as a private company with initial capital of £50000, raised from shares limited to gold mining companies that were members of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines. A further £165 000 was borrowed and secured by registered debentures. Following a comprehensive survey, the site at Germiston, 16 kilometres east of Johannesburg, was selected because services and rail facilities were available and its position was the geographical centre of the Witwatersrand gold mining area. By December 1921, the refinery was completed with a capacity of 12 million tray ounces (373 250 kg) of fine gold per annum. Designed capacity