A JOINT Venture between Russia’s JSC Afromet and Zimbabwe’s Pen East – Great Dyke Investments (GDI) – is to build a precious metals mine and smelter in the southern African country representing an investment of some $400m, said Reuters.
Citing GDI’s CEO, Igor Higer, Reuters said production would be up to 855,000 ounces of platinum group metals (PGM) and gold per year from the Darwendale PGM project. Its deposit, which has total resources of around 1,300 tonnes of PGMs is part of the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe and is the world’s biggest PGM asset.
“According to our estimates the investment in the first phase the project construction is $400m,” said Hepsina Rukato, chairman of the GDI board of directors. The companies said that the initial infrastructure of roads, storage and residential facilities have been built. The project is expected to create around 8,000 highly skilled jobs at full capacity.
