JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The shares of diversified mining company Pallinghurst rose by more than 4% in Johannesburg on Monday after the company reported a rise on the performance of its platinum, manganese and coloured gemstones business units during troubled times.

In the 12 months to December 31, the JSE-listed company’s profit was $55-million and its net asset value 35% higher after its Sedibelo Platinum operations recorded their first full year of profitability, along with three-million fatality-free shifts.

“In a year where the industry found itself in troubled times, I am pleased to report profits for all our three business platforms,” CE Arne Frandsen reported in a stock exchange news announcement, which saw the Pallinghurst share price rise to R3.50 a share by the close.

With current commodity prices low and pessimism widespread, it has been the strategy of executive chairperson Brian Gilbertson to position the company to realise value even in the weakest of markets.

Sedibelo Platinum achieved another production record in 2014 with yearly dispatches of 154 400 oz of 4E (platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold) platinum-group metals (PGMs).

The separately Aim-listed Gemfields coloured gemstone business, which has the world’s largest emerald mine, Kagem, in Zambia, generated $77-million revenue from its first two auctions of rubies from its Montepuez mine in Mozambique and is looking to do as well in sapphires though exploration in Sri Lanka.

Bulk sampling at Montepuez saw markedly increased ruby production during the scaling-up of its operations and Gemfields continues to unlock Fabergé’s growth potential with improvements in its financial metrics and the recent unveiling of the Fabergé Pearl Egg.

Gemfields’ strong revenue generation has been reflected in its share price, which increased by 40% during the year.

In addition, the Tshipi Borwa manganese mine in the Northern Cape doubled its export volumes to two-million-plus tonnes of manganese from a management team that has demonstrated the mine’s capability to produce at a rate of three-million tonnes a year if solutions can be found to resolving current transportation constraints.

Tshipi Borwa has been developed rapidly with support from Ntsimbintle, headed by struggle luminary Saki Macozoma.

“Each partner in the venture brought unique skills to the operation and its own financial backing, surely one of the finest examples of a black economic-empowerment (BEE) partnership in the South African mining industry,” Gilbertson commented, while also crediting the Bakgatla Ba Kgafela for providing a BEE tailwind for the company’s PGMs business, which has added 100-million ounces of 4E PGMs to its resource base.

Sedibelo is also testing a potentially industry-transforming range of energy-slashing beneficiation technologies involving a low-energy hydrometallurgical alternative to high-energy smelting.

The environment-friendly Kell process, which Pallinghurst has been studying over a prolonged period, requires only a fifth of the electricity required for conventional smelting and has the potential to increase the recoveries from PGM concentrates.

Initial test results at the platinum mine in the North West province have been positive.

Patented by former Mintek researcher Keith Liddell, the Kell process is said to remove the need to melt PGM concentrate at a high 1 600 ^oC temperature.

Instead, it consumes a mere 140 kWh of electricity for every ton of concentrate processed, compared with 1 000 kWh of electricity for every ton of concentrate smelted, recovering 99%-plus of the platinum and 98% of the remaining PGMs, as well as the base metals.

It requires no milling and emits only 440 kg of carbon dioxide (CO₂) a ton of concentrate treated compared with 1 400 kg of CO₂/t for the estimated two-million tons of concentrate treated in South Africa a year.

The technology is also said to cope well with the chromite in the upper group two reef, which smelting finds problematic.

The main reason why Kell consumes so little power is that waste goes through the process without consuming any electricity.

“Although commodity prices are currently depressed, our robust operations should withstand the storm, even for an extended period. Each of our operations is well positioned to deliver its full value for shareholders when the upturn comes, as surely it will,” Gilbertson commented.