Twin platinum-nickel company Braemore Resources plc would “without question” also seek to apply its proprietary nickel-leaching technologies in Southern Africa in addition to Australia where they were about to be turned to positive account, Braemore acting CEO David Russell said on listing on the JSE’s main board in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

The company, which intended constructing a 10 MW smelter in Rustenburg for use by smelter-constrained junior platinum miners, had an extensive nickel project in Western Australia in joint venture (JV) with BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest diversified mining company, Russell confirmed.

On the possibility of Braemore applying its nickel prowess in Southern Africa, in addition to introducing novel platinum group metals (PGMs) smelting technology, Russell responded to Mining Weekly Online: “There’s no question about that.”

Of the JV with BHP Billiton, Russell said: “That’s a nickel tailings retreatment project, where we have – sitting on surface, mined and milled and waiting for us – some 500 000 t of nickel sulphide.

“We have developed technologies that are proprietary to us – though Outotec in Finland and through Atomaer, our major shareholder – which will result in rapid atmospheric leaching of nickel.

“These technologies have already given us some results. We have reported up to 90% recoveries of nickel in less than eight hours, which is a significant achievement.

“We believe that this technology may be the future way of processing nickel sulphides, and possibly even nickel laterites.

“The technologies are not revolutionary, but they are very sophisticated extensions of existing technologies,” Russell said at the JSE, where the company’s stock had two rapid trades at 92c a share seconds after listing.

On ConRoast, which the company was developing under licence to South Africa’s state-owned Mintek of Randburg, Russell said the presence of chrome in upper group two (UG2) platinum ore was a major issue: “If you wish to produce PGMs from the UG2, it comes with a high chrome content, and that's the problem.

“The existing smelters cannot readily accept a higher chrome concentration into the smelter. It causes problems, as one of your major producers here has already demonstrated.

“More importantly, the ConRoast is a smaller-footprint plant and, as a consequence of fewer process steps, offers significant savings in capital expenditure and operating expenditure,” he said.

A comparison of ConRoast to traditional ‘six-in-line’ smelters indicated possible savings of 25% in capital expenditure and 40% in operating expenditure.

Currently some UG2 producers were penalised for exceeding chrome content in their PGM concentrate.

“What we offer is the ability to have total insensitivity to the chrome content. We can smelt any high chrome concentrate that is available. That’s opening up UG2 for smelting here in South Africa,” Russell said.

Braemore saw itself as being a consolidator for the platinum juniors in that the company would provide the required smelting capacity that could process specifically UG2 and platreef ores.

Russell reiterated the importance to Braemore of its black economic empowerment (BEE) component.

It was the company’s aim to become the “first independent BEE PGM smelter in South Africa”.

The initial site of the proposed 10 MW smelter in Rustenburg had been subject to a definite feasibility study and Braemore foresaw the ultimate funding of the smelter arising from three sources – commercial terms with a BEE partner, debt and equity.

“We’re fairly confident that we could raise the required equity in this country and probably get the debt from South African banks as well. This is a South African project,” Russell said.

Wednesday’s listing, he added, was one of compliance with Braemore's agreement with South Africa's state-owned Mintek, and not one to raise capital.

Braemore had just raised R100-million in London, which was sufficient to fund current commitments, order long-lead items for the proposed 10 MW smelter and provide liquidity in its balance sheet to continue until “we press the button” on the construction of the 10 MW smelter.

At that point, the company would be seeking additional funding in South Africa.

On energy, he said: “From an Australian perspective, because that’s where I am living now, it’s not an issue. Nobody in Australia would expect reticulated power at a mine gate.

“For example, we have the world’s third-largest nickel producer. They’re a thousand miles away from the nearest reticulated power. We will look at generating our own power and as a consequence the capex and opex budgets will reflect that.

“We are looking, as other producers are, at heavy-fuel generation of electricity and for the scale we are working up to, say 10 MW initially, self generation of power is not an issue,” said Russell, who formerly worked as a geologist and mining analyst in South Africa.

On Braemore’s nickel-recovery activities, Russell said: “Unfortunately, most people are seduced by the much more sexy PGM side, but we are a twin commodity company that would, “there is no question”, seek to apply its nickel technologies in
Southern Africa.

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