Platinum group metals (PGMs) mining company Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) said last week that it had completed the acquisition of the Mototolo joint venture (JV), which has become a wholly owned asset of the company.

The JSE-listed Amplats, which was a 50% JV partner, has taken up the 40.2% of Mototolo held by Glencore Operations South Africa and the 9.8% held by Kagiso Platinum Ventures.

The purchase consideration to Glencore is R900-million, with a deferred amount being settled monthly over a six-year period, based on the rand PGMs prices over Mototolo’s life-of-mine (LoM) to 2024.

A total purchase consideration of R267-million was paid to Kagiso, with no further deferred consideration being payable.

Amplats CEO Chris Griffith said the transaction meant full ownership of a mechanised, low-cost, high-quality resource and the creation of another major PGMs hub for the company.

In the adjacent wholly owned Der Brochen resource, the deal unlocked significant optionality and would increase the LoM to more than 30 years.

The Mototolo mine, 30 km west of Burgersfort, in Limpopo, on the eastern limb of the Bushveld Complex, operates under a mining right covering 9 km2.

Amplats last week revised its full-year PGMs production guidance upwards to between 5.1-million ounces and 5.2-million ounces on the back of robust third-quarter production.

The company initially expected to produce between 4.75-million ounces and 5-million ounces of PGMs for the full year but, in July, raised that forecast to between 4.85-million ounces and 5.1-million ounces of PGMs.

PGMs production increased by 3% to 1.34-million ounces in the third quarter, while platinum output was up 4% to 649 000 oz and palladium production up 1% to 410 800 oz.

During the quarter under review, strong performances from Unki, which increased its output by 14%, and Amandelbult, where production was up 5%, resulted in the company’s mined PGMs production increasing by 2% to 567 600 oz.

Amplats JV production also increased by 12% to 314 400 oz, owing to solid performances at Mototolo and Kroondal.

The increases were offset by a 2% decrease in Mogalakwena’s production to 271 800 oz, as a result of planned maintenance that resulted in lower concentrator throughput and lower recoveries.

Refined PGMs production decreased by 21% to about one-million ounces, as a result of a planned partial furnace rebuild at the Polokwane smelter during the quarter, which led to an increase in work-in-progress inventory. This, subsequently, resulted in a 16% decrease in sales volumes to about 1.2-million ounces.

The company notes that, as a result of scheduled smelter rebuilds and maintenance at both Mortimer smelter and the Polokwane smelter, there has been an increase in work-in- progress inventory of about 460 000 oz, including 270 000 oz of platinum and 160 000 oz of palladium at the end of the third quarter.

The built-up inventory will not be refined in full by year-end and, therefore, refined production guidance of 4.85-million ounces to 5.1-million ounces is lower than produced production.

Amplats’ sales volume guidance has also been revised upwards to between 5.2-million ounces and 5.3-million ounces, as a drawdown of refined inventory has supplemented sales volumes.