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About this report

Corporate profile - the business of gold

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AngloGold Ashanti Limited, one of the world's leading gold mining companies, has 21 operations in 10 countries on four continents. Its portfolio includes long-life, relatively low-cost assets and differing orebody types in key gold-producing regions around the globe. Activities range from deep-level hard-rock mining to open-pit mining, and include exploration, both brownfields and greenfields as well as research and development.

AngloGold Ashanti was established in April 2005 following the business combination of AngloGold Limited, a South African gold mining company, and Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited, a Ghanaian gold mining company. The business combination of two of Africa's leading gold mining companies was in line with the group's strategy of achieving geographic and orebody diversity, and resulted in an increased portfolio of shallow, low-cost surface mines.

Countries in which AngloGold Ashanti has operations are: South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Namibia, Tanzania and the USA. The group is guided by the corporate office located in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the management of the group undertaken under the auspices of two divisions: the African operations and the international operations (that is non-African operations).

In 2005, total gold production increased by 6% to 6.2 million ounces, of which 2.7 million ounces (44%) came from deep-level hard-rock operations in South Africa and the balance of 3.5 million ounces (56%) from the shallower and surface operations.

The group conducts extensive exploration activities in areas as diverse as Alaska in North America and Colombia in South America, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Africa and Mongolia, Russia and China in Asia.

Shareholder information

With its headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti has its primary listing in Johannesburg on the JSE (ANG). It is also listed on the following securities exchanges: New York (AU), London (AGG), Australia (AGG) and Ghana (AGA) as well as Euronext Paris (VA) and Euronext Brussels (ANG).

	Finding the orebody AngloGold Ashanti’s global exploration programme generates targets and undertakes exploration, on its own or in conjunction with joint venture partners.

Finding the orebody Creating access to the orebody There are two types of mining which take place to access the orebody: underground – a vertical or decline shaft (designed to transport people and/or materials) is first sunk deep into the ground, after which horizontal development takes place at various levels of the main shaft or decline. This allows for further on-reef development of specific mining areas where the orebody has been identified; and open-pit – where the top layers of topsoil or rock are removed in a process called ‘stripping’ to uncover the reef.

Removing the ore by mining or breaking the orebody In underground mining, holes are drilled into the orebody, filled with explosives and then blasted. The blasted ‘stopes’ or ‘faces’ are then cleaned and the ore released is now ready to be transported out of the mine. In open-pit mining, drilling and blasting may also be necessary to release the gold-bearing rock; excavators then load the material onto the ore transport system.

Transporting the broken material from the mining face to the plants for treatment Underground ore is transported by means of vertical and/or horizontal transport systems. Once on surface, conveyor belts usually transport the ore to the treatment plants. Open-pit mines transport ore to the treatment plants in vehicles capable of hauling huge, heavy loads.

Processing Ore is transported via conveyor belts to the treatment plants where it is broken and crushed in milling circuits. Further processing takes place via the refractory treatment where the ore is leached in an alkaline cyanide leach solution followed generally by adsorption of the gold cyanide complex onto activated carbon-in-pulp (CIP). An alternative is the heap-leach process where the run-ofmine ore is crushed and placed on the leach pad. Low strength alkaline cyanide solution is used to dissolve the gold and transferred to the carbon-in-solution columns where the gold cyanide complex is adsorbed onto activated carbon. Gold adsorbed onto activated carbon is recovered by a process of re-dissolving the gold from the activated carbon, followed by precipitation in electro-winning cells and subsequent smelting of that precipitate into bars that are shipped to the gold refineries.

	Refining The gold dust is then smelted into gold bars, which are transported to a refinery for further refining, to as close to pure gold as possible – called good delivery status. This gives the assurance that the bar contains the quantity and purity of gold as stamped on the bar.