Platinum group metals (PGMs) producer Sylvania Platinum’s project portfolio includes four hot spots on the northern limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex that have been identified as prospective platinum, palladium and gold targets (PGM 3E), together with copper and nickel deposits.

Each hot spot could potentially lead to a new mine, with innovative, multiple small processing plants planned that could be moved between operations, the company says.

However, the company states that the development of the deposits on the northern limb is likely to progress only once the company’s Volspruit operation, in Limpopo, 18 km south of the town of Mokopane, is operational, as Volspruit is the higher grade and more feasible source.

Volspruit
The Volspruit project covers two adjacent orebodies that will be mined for PGMs and other base metals, such as copper and nickel, through two opencast pits. At full production, Volspruit is planned to feed three 100 000 t/m concentrator plant modules.

This project is currently on hold because Sylvania is awaiting the approval of its environmental-impact assessment (EIA), which it hopes to receive within the next six months. The company also hopes to have clarification regarding finance for the project by that time.

“We are quite positive that the EIA will be approved; the project is said to contain at least 3.1-million ounces of PGMs in the measured, indicated and inferred categories, as well as some 123 000 t of nickel and 33 500 t of copper,” states Sylvania MD Jaco Prinsloo.

The company notes that, when operational, the Volspruit mine will have a mine and a processing plant, consisting of three operating concentrator modules, two smelter modules and a refinery.

Ore from the processing plants will be fed into a single arch 10 MW direct current furnace comprising two 5 MW modules and a Chemical Vapour Metal Refining technology refinery.

He adds that Sylvania will mine about 130 000 oz/y at an estimated cost of $500/oz and will be able to have the mine up and running within three years from receiving the necessary regulatory approvals, as it will be an opencast operation, with low strip ratios that do not require shafts.

Grasvally Chrome Project
Sylvania announced its initial mineral resource estimate in March this year, following work done on the southern section at its Grasvally chrome project, adjacent to Sylvania’s existing Volspruit PGM project.

Prinsloo states that, “the Grasvally project is a high-grade chromitite resource with a significant amount of exploration and drilling on it. It has the potential to be developed into a series of low-capital openpits”.

Sylvania’s operations update in March reported that the project has an initial mineral resource of 64 900 t of high-grade chromitite, with an on-site grade of 40.70% chromium oxide (III) and a chrome to iron ratio of 2.19:1. The chromotite is accessible through small and shallow openpits.

Current exploration also aims at proving up the underground resource, which will be accessible through several kilometres of predevelopment and which is expected to add significantly to the total resource.

“This exploration has been achieved with minimal costs and indicates that this is some of the highest-grade chrome ore being recovered in South African chrome mines,” Prinsloo comments, adding that exploration has, to date, concentrated on proving the feasibility of recovering the ore through opencast methods.

Sylvania is submitting a mining application for this project.