San Gold's predecessors acquired the Rice Lake Mine (formerly known as the San Antonio or Bissett Mine) from Harmony Gold Mining Company Ltd. of South Africa in 2004 by purchasing all the shares of Harmony Gold (Canada) Inc. The mine produced an aggregate of over 1.4 million ounces of gold from approximately 5.8 million tons of ore with an overall average grade of 0.25 gold ounces per ton by San Antonio Gold Mines Ltd. (1.35 million ounces over 36 years) and Harmony Gold (Canada) Inc. (210,000 ounces over 2 years).
The Rice Lake Mine has had over $120 million spent on improvements by Rea Gold Corporation ($90 million) in the early 1990's and Harmony Gold (Canada) Inc. ($30 million) in the early 2000's. In 2004, a joint venture company (owned by the two predecessor companies of San Gold) purchased the Rice Lake Mine, the mill, 550,000 ounces of audited gold resources and a small mine claim package for a total purchase price of $7.5 million. San Gold Corporation was formed in 2005 through the amalgamation of the joint venture participant companies, San Gold Resources Corporation and Gold City Industries Ltd. The Company proceeded to explore its own properties along the mine horizon from the Rice Lake Mine and also refit the existing 1,200 tpd mill and the Rice Lake Mine in preparation to resume operations in 2006. The Rice Lake Mill has since been upgraded to a capacity of about 2,000 tpd.
The Company discovered a new deposit, SG-1, three kilometres east of the Rice Lake Mine and proceeded to put a ramp into the ore zone. The SG-1 Mine provided the first ore into the mill in July 2006 and gave the Company a second source of ore to supplement the Rice Lake Mine.