Bateman, meanwhile, enthused that the all-in sustaining costs (AISCs) for Sibanye’s US operation had been on a pleasing downward trend during the third quarter.

Sibanye was, however, still expecting to finish the year within its guidance and was targeting an AISC of about $550/oz by the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022.

The average realised selling price dipped to $896/oz in the third quarter, but Bateman noted that a strong recovery was on the cards for this month.

The miner was trading at about $1 020 per two-element ounce, which comprised 78% palladium and about 22% platinum.

Meanwhile, one of the two furnaces at the miner’s PGM processing facilities, in Columbus, Ohio, was expected to come back on line in early December, with operations expected to restart in mid-December.

Bateman explained that the ore fed from the mines increased the copper/nickel levels.

“That gives us a cost advantage in the recycling business, as we’re not having to purchase additional materials to recycle to autocatalysts,” he said.

The processing facility currently had a high recovery rate of 99.8% for PGMs, and only rans for four days a week.

Bateman said electric furnace No 2 would soon be expanded when it was rebuilt.

He explained that this was required as a result of the Blitz expansion and would increase the capacity to catch up after a rebuild.

“We’ve got a good feeling about the quality of Stillwater . . . and we think that the pain we are taking in terms of current leverage, and so on, was well worth [it] in acquiring this asset,” CEO Neal Froneman commented.

South Africa

Sibanye was also looking forward to closing the buyout of fellow South African platinum mining company Lonmin and integrating it successfully into its operations.

The Competition Tribunal’s hearing on Sibanye-Stillwater’s proposed acquisition of Lonmin had been rescheduled for the week of November 12, with a ruling anticipated before the end of this month.

The company, meanwhile, remained focused on deleveraging and getting its gold business performing again, while not letting its PGM assets underperform.

The significant operational challenges experienced at the South African gold operations during the first half of this year, and the additional safety improvement interventions that were undertaken, continued to affect productivity across the gold operations in the third quarter.

Driefontein, in particular, delivered substantially reduced production rates.

As a result, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) for the South African gold operations for the third quarter were substantially lower than for the comparable period in 2017, with an elevated AISC.

As a result of the reduced contribution from the South African gold operations during the period and the deferral of September sales to October at the US PGM operations, group adjusted Ebitda plummeted by 40% to R1.6-billion.

Contributions from group PGMs operations to group adjusted Ebitda increased to 85%, compared with 49% in the prior comparable period.