DRDGOLD Limited

Notable vs. Peers

• Jurisdiction risk score of 6/10 is meaningfully riskier than the peer average of 7.8/10.

Lifecycle Milestones

1. Permit granted

   Reached — date not disclosed · Far West Gold Recoveries (FWGR) Phase 1 -- the same asset this miner's existing CONSTRUCTION_DECISION/CONSTRUCTION_START/FIRST_PRODUCTION rows are anchored to -- reconfigures the acquired DP2 plant to process reclaimed Driefontein tailings storage facilities (TSFs) acquired from Sibanye-Stillwater in a transaction that closed July 31, 2018. The TSFs were acquired via a Use and Access agreement under which the underlying mining rights, water use licences and environmental authorisations continued to be held by Sibanye-Stillwater pending transfer of those that are transferable, rather than a new permit being granted to DRDGOLD itself for Phase 1 as a dated event. Corroborated by Mining Weekly's Feb 2024 FWGR operational update, which describes DRDGOLD as 'working on obtaining the requisite amendment to the project's [existing] water usage licence' for the later Phase 2 expansion -- i.e. Phase 1's approvals already existed pre-DRDGOLD rather than being newly granted, and only an AMENDMENT (not a fresh grant) is pending for Phase 2. No dated 'permit granted' event specific to Phase 1 was found. Same reused-pre-existing-permit shape as HL/San Sebastian (this same batch, above) and DVP/Woodlawn (Task #641). · Source
2. Construction decision (FID)

   Reached — date not disclosed · DRDGOLD announced advancement of Phase 1 of the Far West Gold Recoveries project (reconfiguring the existing DP2 plant to treat reclaimed Driefontein 5 tailings, R330M investment) in 2018; exact day within 2018 not confirmed from available sourcing. · Source
3. Construction start

   Reached — date not disclosed · Construction of Phase 1 was underway through H2 2018; commissioning (pumping reclaimed tailings into the CIL circuit) began December 6, 2018 per contemporary reporting. No distinct construction-start release with an exact date was found. · Source
4. First pour / production

   Apr 2019 · Far West Gold Recoveries Phase 1 reached commercial production, within eight months of the underlying tailings-resource acquisition. DRDGOLD's broader Ergo surface-tailings operation has independently produced gold for many years prior to this specific expansion phase. · Source
5. Commercial production

   Reached — date not disclosed · Genuinely reached, but no single company-wide commercial-production date exists: DRDGOLD's business is surface gold-tailings retreatment across multiple sites (Ergo in the East Rand, and the Far West Gold Recoveries (FWGR) joint venture with Sibanye-Stillwater in the West Rand), each independently developed/acquired at different times over decades of the company's history reprocessing legacy Witwatersrand mine dumps. This row was missing entirely prior to 2026-08-21 -- a genuine data gap, not a stage error; Miner.stage was already correctly PRODUCTION. · Source

Milestones are recorded only from a company's own dated disclosure. A milestone with no date shown is one we can confirm was reached but for which no date was disclosed — we don't estimate one. "Not yet reached" means exactly that, not that a date is missing. An "Expected" line likewise only ever reflects the company's own guidance (e.g. a study or permit decision targeted for a stated quarter) — most not-yet-reached milestones have none, and that absence means no such guidance has been disclosed, not that one is overdue.

A relative ranking of how closely this company matches the profile of juniors that have actually been acquired — not a probability, and not a reason to buy. Acquisitions are rare: only a few dozen significant deals happen a year across a universe of thousands of juniors, so even a high score here describes a long shot. The strongest signal the underlying research identifies — whether a major already holds a JV, earn-in, or 5–19.9% strategic stake — isn't tracked yet and is absent from this score.