Amplats in final planning stages for new Amandelbult chrome plant
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Platinum miner Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) is in the final stages of getting a project under way to establish a new 600 000 t/y chrome retreatment plant at its Amandelbult mine, in Limpopo, Anglo American precious and base metals Africa marketing head Jill Wolfe said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the seventh South African Ferro-Alloys conference, convened by MetalBulletin Events, she pointed out that platinum-group metal (PGM) byproducts, such as upper group two (UG2) chrome, were important to the company as the revenue from these products was used to counter PGM mining costs.
“In this challenging cost environment, byproducts are critical to PGM companies,” Wolfe noted.
Wolfe stressed that the potential Amandelbult plant was still only in the planning stage and that final approvals were still needed, adding, however, that the company was confident that the project would go ahead.
She stated that the company was looking at an 18-month development timeline for the plant that would then see its capacity included in Amplats’ production from 2017 onward.
Touching on whether UG2 demand was significant enough to accommodate the commodities’ increased supply, Wolfe said demand was expected to be sufficient in future.
However, the question was whether the industry would be able to meet this demand as the repositioning of the platinum industry had a significant impact on chrome production, she commented.
Amplats currently operated two chrome smelters, namely the Masa Chrome plant, a joint venture with Siyanda Resources, at its Union mine, and the Waterval plant, both in Rustenburg.
These chrome plants currently produced 330 000 t/y and 350 000 t/y respectively.
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