Zimbabwe: $270 million to boost new mine capacity

2022-09-09

Zimplats Holdings, a platinum group metals producer, said it had invested $270.3 million as planned in the first half of 2022 on successor mine and beneficiation projects.

In November, the company announced its investment strategy for the next 10 years, with a total budget of $1.8 billion.

Zimba Platinum's financial report for fiscal 2021-22 shows that development of the Mupani Mine is progressing well. The Mupani mine is a successor to the Rukodzi Mine (closed in June 2022) and the Ngwarati Mine, both of whose remaining mineral resources are expected to be completely depleted by 2025. The Mupani mine's capacity will increase from its current design capacity of 2.2 million tonnes per annum to 3.6 million tonnes per annum to replace some of the capacity from the Mupfuti mine, which is due to run dry in 2027. Accordingly, the total cost of the Mupani mine project is expected to increase from $264 million to $386.2 million.

"A total of $441 million has been spent on the program this year, bringing the program's expenditure to $190.7 million so far. The mine is scheduled to reach 2.2 Mt/Y production by September 2024 and 3.6 Mt/Y design capacity by August 2028."

Zimba Platinum noted that Bimha Mine's design capacity will also be upgraded from the current 2 million tonnes/year to 3.1 million tonnes/year and that the project is well on schedule. A total of $27.8 million was spent on the project for the year, bringing the total project expenditure to $34.7 million so far. "The upgraded Binha mine is expected to achieve 3.1 million tonnes a year in FY2023," Zimba Platinum said.

Total expenditures for Zimba Platinum's third concentrator were $64.7 million in fiscal 2021-22, bringing total project expenditures to $79.3 million to date.

Zimba Platinum said the new concentrator, with a planned capacity of 900,000 tonnes/year, would grind ore from optimised mine life before the closure of the depleted mine. "The project commenced in FY2021 and is on track to be operational in the first quarter of FY2023."

During the reporting period, Zimba's board of directors approved the construction of a new 38 MW furnace and an acid plant at a total cost of $520.6 million. Zimba Platinum said it was now exporting some of its metal products in concentrate because its existing smelter could not handle all the concentrate produced at the smelter.

The company said the commissioning of the third concentrator, currently under construction, would increase concentrate production from 144,000 tons to 163,000 tons/year. At the same time, "the new furnace will increase smelting capacity to 380,000 tons of concentrate from the current 135,000 tons." "A total of US $18.5 million was spent during the year on the project, which will open the smelter in January 2024 and the acid plant in August 2024," Zimba Platinum said.

During the reporting period, the Company's revenue declined by 8% to $1.2 billion in 2022 from $1.4 billion in 2021, mainly due to a decrease in the average metal price in US dollars during the year.

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