JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – After having revitalised the company, TSX-listed platinum miner Eastern Platinum (Eastplats) plans to continue creating shareholder value this year, CEO Diana Hu said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Eastplats made tremendous strides during 2018 to start the retreatment project operations, generate revenue and, overall, to revitalise the company. The Eastplats team is driven to achieve further successes in 2019,” she said in a statement announcing the company’s results for the financial year ended December 31, 2018.

In the year under review, Eastplats had generated revenue of $64-million – its first revenue since 2013.

This followed after the company, in March 2018, entered into an agreement with Union Goal Offshore Solution for the construction, re-mining and processing of the tailing resource and offtake of chrome concentrate from Eastplats’ Crocodile River Mine (CRM).

The project was commissioned during December and shortly thereafter, operational ramp-up began, with Eastplats delivering feed from the tailings to the chrome plant to produce chrome concentrate.

The initial operation which ran from late December to the end of February, produced 46.7 t of chrome concentrate with an average grade of 38.6%.

Eastplats is focused on ramping up throughput of tailings material and has estimated its ramp-up to near full capacity during the second quarter of this year. The company will also start testing and assessing the platinum group metals recovery potential during the second quarter. 

The retreatment project is expected to generate operating cash flows of about $1-million a month for about five years once it is at full capacity.

Given its focus on the retreatment project, Eastplats had placed its other opportunities on hold during 2018.

For this year, it is targeting the ramp-up to full production at the retreatment project, finalising the acquisition of a chrome circuit for the retreatment project, assessing the Mareesburg project and assessing the CRM Zandfontein underground operations.

Eastplats says it is actively looking at opportunities for its other assets and properties, as well as exploring options to use or monetise these assets.