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Eastplats to lift platinum output
Julie Bain
Posted: Wed, 02 Apr 2008
[miningmx.com] -- THE granting of a new order miner right for Eastern Platinum's Crocette section at its Crocodile River Mine in South Africa gives the platinum junior the go ahead to develop the project.
Ian Rozier, President and CEO of Eastern Platinum (Eastplats) said the right was granted this week by the Department of Minerals and Energy.
Eastplats, which has its primary listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange with a secondary listing on the JSE, has more than 86 million ounces of platinum group metal reserves and resources at three projects in South Africa.
As well as moving to lift production to 200,000 tonnes a month from its underground operations at its Crocodile river mine, Eastplats plans to develop three other projects in South Africa.
"We are making substantial progress with underground development at Crocodile River Mine in order to build up
towards a target production rate of 200,000 tonnes per month," Rozier said.
"We have major plans in 2008 for developing the Crocette Section at the Crocodile River Mine as well as our Spitzkop and Mareesburg properties on the Eastern limb and plan on bringing them into production as quickly as possible," he said.
When the company took over Barplats it came with a disused smelter at the
Crocodile River mine and Eastplats has said it is looking into re-starting the plant. It commissioned a study last year but has yet to say if intends to restart the smelter which has a design capacity of 250,000 oz of matte. This could be increased to 600,000 oz. The plant is 80% complete.
South Africa's high inflation is one of the factors behind an increase in costs in the final quarter of last year to the end of December at Crocodile River, with operating cash costs at $774/oz compared to $613/oz in the same quarter in 2006.
In the final quarter Eastplats said its average sale price per platinum group ounce was $1,305 compared to $992 in the same quarter of last year.
In the six months to the end of December Eastplats recorded a net loss of $12,2m compared to a net income of $4,4m for the six months ended December 31, 2006.
In the final quarter of last year the company saw a net loss of $10,8m compared to a net income of $6,6m in the same
period in 2006, it attributed the loss to a significant foreign exchange losses as the rand weakened against the Canadian dollar and a stock-based compensation expense compared to the prior period.
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