CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – Canada’s Ivanplats has discovered a significant platinum deposit near Mokopane in South Africa, CEO Robert Friedland said on Wednesday, adding that it was considering setting up smelting and refining operations in the country.

Speaking at the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Wednesday, Friedland would not be drawn on the size of the Platreef project, but said that the ore body was “very large” and has a “very high grade”.

The ultimate scale of the project was still unknown and the company planned to develop it in stages.

According to Friedland, the discovery of an underground flat reef at a depth of approximately 750 m completely changed the company’s perception of this project. The flat reef discovered had a mineralisation profile that included disseminated nickel/copper sulphides and a variety of platinum-group metals. Friedland said that in comparison to a typical Merensky reef, the Platreef project was 25 to 50 times thicker with higher-grade mineralisation.

“Typically we are seeing a 25 to 35 m true thickness in this flat-lying body. As a consequence it can be mined by room and pillar. It will be highly mechanised and the labour component per unit of the platinum produced will be very low compared to traditional underground mining.”

The intention was that all mining would be underground and “have no material deleterious impact on local populations”.

Ivanplats also intended to add value to the minerals downstream and was planning to include smelting and possible refining components into the project.

“It is our intention to build this project into the lowest-cost, longest-life new source of platinum in the world. It’s my personal belief it will be a negative cost producer of platinum-group metals, that the base metal endowment is strong enough to cover more than 100% of the cash operating costs to produce platinum, palladium, gold and rhodium,” said Friedland.

Ivanplats has reached an agreement with a Japanese consortium for the development of the Platreef project. The consortium is led by the Itochu Corporation and includes the Japanese Gas Corporation and Japanese Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, or Jogmec.
 

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