AFRICAN Rainbow Minerals (ARM) is accelerating plans to move into copper and chrome production after a major correction in platinum group metals (PGM) and lower coal prices drove its annual profit 43% lower.
Reuters cited ARM CEO Phillip Tobias saying during a results call on Friday that the company’s board had approved the construction of a chrome recovery plant at its Bokoni platinum mine, where the platinum ramp up will be “phased and measured” due to the lower prices.
“That is additional revenue. It comes on top of what you already have in terms of fixed costs, therefore diluting your overall operating costs,” said Tobias. “If you look at the trends, you would have seen that China has been buying a lot of chrome ore,” he added.
South African platinum miners are increasingly turning to chrome, which is a by-product of their primary production, to offset the impact of low PGM prices, said Reuters.
Other miners, including Sibanye Stillwater and Harmony Gold have recently diversified into critical metals such as lithium and copper, which are vital for renewable energy systems, said Reuters.
In May, ARM acquired a 15% stake in Surge Copper which has two copper exploration projects in Canada.
“We want to get in there. It is part of ARM’s strategy of diversification into copper,” Mike Schmidt, ARM’s executive for growth and strategic development, said during the same call.
Tobias said the ARM board considered its 12% shareholding in Harmony Gold to be more strategic now due to the gold miner’s copper assets.
Harmony expects to start producing from its Eva Copper project in Australia by 2028. It also jointly owns the Wafi-Golpu gold-copper project in Papua New Guinea with Newmont.
