JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The combination of a stable production profile, improved offtake and the receipt of chrome recovery permissions, have improved Sylvania Platinum’s outlook for the 2015 financial year, the company said on Monday.
The miner, led by CEO Terry McConnachie, said in a statement that the Sylvania dump operations (SDO) had exceeded expectations over the last 18 months, with six consecutive quarters of continuous growth up to September 30.
Higher production levels and technical focus, combined with specific improvement initiatives across all operations, contributed towards this achievement.
“A project to move from mechanical mining to hydromining at all plants will assist to improve feed stability to plants and to reduce mining costs going forward. This project started in August, with completion expected by the end of the second quarter of the 2015 financial year,” stated Sylvania.
Meanwhile, the company signed a new offtake agreement for the concentrate produced by SDO.
“Pursuant to the new agreement, the board had secured improved terms in respect of the 2015 financial year and thereafter,” it noted.
The company also announced on Monday that it had received permission from the Department of Mineral Resources to remove and dispose of bulk samples of chrome recovered in the course of prospecting operations on the Grasvally and Zoetveld properties, in Limpopo, over which its subsidiary, Grasvally chrome mine, held a prospecting right.
Based on the high chrome-to-iron ratios found during the initial exploration phase of the project, the company believed the testwork to be done on the ore removed by the bulk sample would prove that the chromite was of unusually high quality by South African standards.