South Africa’s mid-tier gold producer, DRDGold, on Monday said gold production at its mines was “back up” in the quarter to December last year, boosted by a 9 percent surge in the market value of the precious metal.

“We are pleased that production was back up, but we would have preferred to have had the FFG (flotation fine grind) circuit fully operational by the end of December 2013. That is what we told the market we were aiming for,”Niel Pretorius, the CEO of DRDGold, said.

He said however hold-ups in getting the last of three thickeners up and operating postponed the final commissioning by almost a month.

DRDGold said during the quarter under review, the building of the FFG circuit at its Brakpan Plant was finished and running full steam ahead in the third week of January this year.

In the production update released on Wednesday, DRDGold said it posted a 4 percent quarter-to-quarter surge in gold production, boosting operating profit 17 percent in the process.