JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – A challenging January has resulted in Aim-listed Sylvania Platinum’s four-element (4E) platinum group metals (PGMs) production decreasing by 3% quarter-on-quarter to 16 857 oz for the third quarter ended March 31.

“January was a particularly difficult month due to the impact of the delays with a licence at our newly constructed Millsell tailings facility.

“When the permissions were eventually received to use the new tailings facility, nearly barren waste slime on top of the dump had to be processed first,” CEO Terry McConnachie explained on Monday.

The Millsell operation experienced lower PGM feed grades and feed instability during the three months ended March 31, following the new tailings dam commissioning delay, and temporary hydro-mining upset, which only started to normalise during February.

Production issues at the host mines resulted in lower-than-planned current arisings at Millsell and Mooinooi, as well as lower-than-planned run-of-mine (RoM) feed during the quarter, negatively impacting on PGM plant feed grades and ounce production. 

“Our operations responded by increasing dump feed to the plants, but owing to the typical lower PGM grade and recovery potential of the dump material compared with that of current arisings and RoM, the PGM ounce production was negatively impacted at these sites,” McConnachie noted.

Nevertheless, after a challenging start to the quarter, most operations performed well, and Sylvania delivered its highest monthly PGM ounce production to date, of 6 631 oz in March, putting the company in a position to meet its revised full-year production guidance of 71 000 oz to 75 000 oz.

The gross basket price for PGMs for the quarter was $1 141/oz, a 7% improvement on the second quarter’s $1 067/oz. 

Despite the lower ounce production, the group recorded a 3% increase in revenue from $14.1-million to $14.5-million owing to the increase in the basket price.