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Platreef weighted basket price reaches three-year high – Ivanhoe

19th February 2019

By: Nadine James

Features Deputy Editor

     

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Ivanhoe Mines co-chairpersons Robert Friedland and Yufeng Sun, as well as Ivanplats MD Dr Patricia Makhesha, on Monday announced that the weighted basket price of the metals contained in the Platreef palladium/platinum/rhodium/nickel/copper/gold project has risen to a new, three-year high.

Friedland noted that while platinum prices have lagged, palladium and rhodium have been two of the best performing metals, and that the platinum-to-palladium ratio at Platreef is about 1:1.

He added that the nickel, copper and gold content contributed significantly to Platreef’s contained metal valuation. He pointed out that the price appreciation since 2016 has been “encouraging” as the project advances toward production.

Friedland also noted that, on Monday, Asian markets reached their highest levels since December, “buoyed by optimism over US-China trade talks.”

Ivanhoe’s bullish long-term outlook for metal prices is predicated on forecasts that platinum, copper and nickel will be among the biggest beneficiaries of the accelerating global transition to zero-emission, pure electric and fuel-cell electric vehicles, and clean energy.

Friedland commented that Ivanhoe had seen “significant renewed investor interest” in Platreef, following the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “confidence boost” for the country’s mining industry.

Makhesha added that the company conducted a high-level site visit to the Platreef project immediately following the Indaba and took investors and analysts on an underground tour.

“After more than 25 years of intense exploration and development efforts in South Africa by Ivanplats and its predecessor company, African Minerals, it was immensely gratifying for our team to show our Japanese partners and international investors the immense thickness of the underground orebody at Platreef.

“The visitors also saw surface stockpiles containing the first 3 500 t of high-grade mineralisation extracted from the 29 m mineralised intersection in Shaft 1,” she stated.

Moreover, she noted that the company had already begun training a new generation of “highly-skilled, young South Africans” to operate the mine’s computerised, underground bulk-mining equipment.

Makhesha added that Ivanplats’ focus is to keep advancing the project along its critical path while working to arrange project debt financing for the construction of the first phase of the four-million-tonne-a-year project.

PROGRESS UPDATE

Makhesha noted that “good progress” had been made on Shaft 1’s 850 m level station – the second of three horizontal mining access stations planned for Shaft 1.

The first underground mining access station has been built at the 750 m level, following earlier development of a water-pumping station at the 450 m level.

The third mining access station will be developed at a mine-working depth of 950 m.

Shaft 1 is expected to reach its projected final depth of around 980 m, complete with all four of the stations, in early 2020.

The mining zones in the current Platreef mine plan occur at depths ranging from about 700 m to 1 200 m below surface.

Construction also is under way on the concrete foundation for the project’s main production shaft ─ Shaft 2.

The foundation will support the 103-m-tall concrete headgear that will house Shaft 2’s permanent hoisting facilities and support the shaft collar.

Shaft 2 will have an internal diameter of 10 m and will be equipped with two 40 t rock-hoisting skips, which will have the largest hoisting capacity at any mine in Africa of six-million tonnes a year.

According to a 2017 definitive feasibility study (DFS), Platreef is projected to have a cash cost of $351/oz (of three platinum elements and gold), net of nickel and copper by-products, and including sustaining capital costs.

The DFS estimated an initial average yearly production rate of 219 000 oz of palladium, 214 000 oz of platinum, 30 000 oz of gold and 14 000 oz of rhodium, as well as 21-million pounds of nickel and 13-million pounds of copper.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

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