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Palmiere calls Barplats exit "amicable"
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Thu, 07 Sep 2006

[miningmx.com] -- ALLEN Palmiere, who stepped down as Barplats chairman on Thursday, said the parting was amicable and he was still on the platinum producer’s board.

Barplats released a brief note to the market, saying Palmiere had stepped down with immediate effect and would be replaced by Ian Rozier, the president of Eastern Platinum, which holds 69% of Barplats.

Palmiere also leaves his position as CEO of Eastern Platinum. His position will be filled by Rozier.

“We came to a mutual agreement that I would step down and they would continue with the development of the operations (at Barplats),” Palmiere told Miningmx.

“It is an amicable parting, but it’s not one that I’m completely happy about,” he said, explaining that he liked the team he had put in place, the assets Barplats has and the operating environment in South Africa.
an amicable parting
“The reality is the company is in very, very good shape today and the team in North America is very solid. The two complement each other very well,” he said.

Rozier could not be immediately reached for comment.

Palmiere’s link with Barplats is not entirely severed. He serves on the boards of JSE-listed Barplats and Toronto-listed Eastern Platinum. “It’s not as though I’m disappearing completely. How long I stay on those boards is up to me and how things unwind in the future. I’ve not resigned from the two boards.”

Barplats has the Crocodile River as its main operating asset on the southern portion of the Western Limb of the Bushveld Complex.

Crocodile River has a chequered 19-year history. It has been run by a number of companies that failed to make it a sustainable venture but failed. World number two platinum miner Impala Platinum was the last to throw in the towel.

Barplats under new management, led first by David Salter and then Palmiere, developed a mining method better suited to tackle the rolling reef at Crocodile River, which has total measured and indicated resources of 3.8m oz of the three platinum group metals and gold. The mine has a life of 20 years.

“My original mandate was to restructure Barplats, get it financed by accessing the North American marketplace, and putting it on a footing to fully unlock the value of the assets. That has been done,” Palmiere said.
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Barplats made a net profit of R15m for the three months to end-March 2006 after a string of losses.

Palmiere is evaluating a number of job opportunities. He is the chairman of Hudbay Minerals, a Canadian zinc and copper miner, he is the chief executive of a junior gold company operating in China and serves on a number of other boards.

Eastern Platinum brought two assets to the partnership, with its Spitzkop deposit bordering Kennedy Vale owned by Barplats. The companies have five drills doing definition drilling ahead of a bankable feasibility study.

There is an extension to Crocodile River called Crocettes that is subject to definition drilling to formulate a mining plan to go straight into production.