NORTHAM Platinum CEO Paul Dunne has dumped cold water over the various junior miners trying to get into the platinum sector and has also questioned whether the second phase of Robert Friedland’s highly-touted Platreef mine will go ahead.
The reason is the grim state of the platinum market which Dunne says makes it “very unlikely any newcomer is going to come into this business”.
Dunne declined to name any aspirant juniors, but commented, “There are some ambitious proclamations for new palladium mines being built on the Northern Limb. I would highly doubt that’s going to happen”.
But he was specific in his view of the Platreef mine – which is controlled by Ivanhoe Mines’ subsidiary Ivanplats – commenting, “We are a partner to Ivanplats so we have some insight there. We have the offtake of Ivanplats material from Phase 1 which looks like it is going ahead.
“Beyond that it looks difficult under these circumstances. Phase 2 looks unlikely. We don’t know that for a fact, but that’s our considered opinion.”
In 2021 Northam agreed to buy 50% of the platinum group metal (pgm) concentrates produced by Ivanplats over a ten year period once the mine started production which was then slated for this year.
According to Ivanhoe’s June quarter report, construction of the Platreef’s Phase 1 concentrator has been completed but the concentrator will be put on care and maintenance until the second half of 2025 as “Shaft 1 prioritises the hoisting of waste from the development required to bring forward the start of Phase 2.
“Work continues on the updated feasibility study to accelerate Platreef’s Phase 2 as well as the preliminary economic assessment of the new Phase 3 expansion.”
According to Ivanhoe the Platreef is “the world’s largest undeveloped precious metals project” and the group intends building it into “one of the world’s largest and lowest-cost producers” of pgms, nickel, copper and gold.
The junior with the most advanced project on the Northern Limb is Canadian-listed Platinum Group Metals which is battling to sign a concentrate off-take agreement before raising the funding needed.
Also looking at two early stage projects on the Northern Limb is London-listed Sylvania Platinum which has just completed a scoping study on one of them while Australian and JSE – listed Southern Palladium is promoting the “advanced stage exploration” Bengwenyama project on the Eastern Limb.
