[miningmx.com] – THARISA, an unlisted chrome and platinum group
metal (PGM) producer, confirmed it had secured R1bn in debt finance, enabling it to
quadruple run-on-mine production from its Tharisa mine to 4.8 million tonnes/year.
Tharisa CEO, Phoevos Pouroulis, said the company had already expanded last year to
a 100,000 tonne/month plant, which “… gave the company commercial capacities’.
This expansion would in all likelihood form the business case for the listing of the
business, possibly on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange later in the year.
Pouroulis declined to comment on a possible listing, but it’s thought the company
prefers to first bed down the commissioning of the expanded mine before applying
for a public listing.
Tharisa Minerals’ mine, which is located on the southwestern tip of the Bushveld
Complex, will now produce 1.92 million tonnes/year of metallurgical grade chrome
concentrate, and 156,000 ounces of PGM concentrate annually by the end of the 2013
calendar year, the company said in an announcement.
Mandated lead arrangers for the finance, first reported by Bloomberg News in
February, were HSBC, Absa Capital and Nedbank. The facility allows for multiple
draw-downs without need for hedging, the company said.
Although the interest rate of the loan is not stated by the company, it’s thought that
by being able to secure finance, Tharisa is not yet heavily impacted by proposals to
implement an export tax on chrome exports.
The ferrochrome industry, led by Merafe Resources, said earlier this year that the
government should impose a duty, possibly at $100/t of chrome exports, in order to
protect the downstream ferrochrome producers who were losing market share to
Chinese production. This is despite the fact that South Africa controls the majority of
the world’s ferrochrome resources.
Tharisa is not opposed to beneficiating its chrome, but it was unsure that Eskom
could provide the power timeously. Tharisa has owned the chrome and PGM resources
since 2008, whereas Eskom was promising power for a ferrochrome operation in 2017.
It’s also thought that government may hit obstacles imposing an export duty on
chrome ore exporters without having to consider similar steps for manganese and
coal exporters.
Tharisa’s mine contains some 800 million tonnes, which makes it the largest single
chrome mineral resource deposit in the world. Life of mine is expected to be about 17
years with the option of expanding the mine underground, Tharisa said.
