JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – A technical committee appointed by Waterberg JV Resources, which holds the Waterberg platinum project, in South Africa, has appointed Stantec Consulting International and DRA Projects South Africa as lead independent project engineers.

Stantec will focus on underground mining engineering and design and reserve estimation, while DRA will focus on metallurgy, plant design, infrastructure and cost estimation.

Platinum Group Metals (PTM), which owns a 50.02% effective interest in the Waterberg joint venture (JV), on Monday reported that the ongoing definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the Waterberg project was now being advanced by the technical committee.

As part of the DFS work, 17 drill rigs are on site, drilling to define the shallowest areas of the current 102-million-tonne reserve.

The technical committee has also agreed on the scope of work and plans for the DFS for this year and in 2018.

The detailed scope of work for the DFS will investigate two options.

The first option involves a 600 000 t/m operation as outlined in the prefeasibility study, while option two will consider a lower capital option at 250 000 t/m to 350 000 t/m.

PTM stated that early optimisation work by the project team to detail the potential for option two using the three decline mechanised mining modules in sequence are encouraging, with the potential to optimise the mine plan.

“We are very pleased with the work completed by the technical committee. The mine building and operating experience of the technical team, including Implats and the newly appointed engineers, alongside our own discovery team, are working with an excellent ‘best for value of the project’ attitude.

“In our joint venture, we have perspectives ranging from geology to metals marketing, including contributions from South Africa, the US, Canada and Japan. Waterberg, which is palladium dominant, is modelled for fully mechanised production and has the potential to be among the lowest operating cost mines in the platinum-group metals sector,” commented PTM CEO R Michael Jones.

The Waterberg project is a JV between PTM; Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation; Mnombo Wethu Consultants; and Impala Platinum.