SOUTHERN Palladium said on Tuesday it had received environmental authorisation for its Bengwenyama Platinum Group Metals (PGM) Project.
The authorisation, granted by South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources, is an important prerequisite for a mining right. The EA covers underground mining as well as certain surface infrastructure.
Johan Odendaal, MD of Southern Palladium said the approval also comes as the company makes headway on an adjusted prefeasibility study.
As per an announcement in its March quarter numbers, Southern Palladium said it was now seeking to build a smaller mine “producing 80,000 tons per month via a single decline and truck haulage system”.
“Results of the study are currently being finalised with updated PFS-level outputs scheduled to be announced in June,” said Odendaal.
In its second stage development, the Bengwenyama mine could be expanded to 200,000 tons per month as envisaged in its earlier prefeasibility study. This would be rolled out at a later date, subject to funding and once stage one was operating successfully.
Situated on the eastern Bushveld, Bengwenyama is estimated to contain 6.92 million ounces at a grade of 6.17g/t. As per the PFS, mine construction was to be from the fourth quarter of 2026 until 2029. Annual production of 400,000 ounces of platinum group metals is forecast at an all in sustaining cost of $800/oz at full tilt.
Despite the company’s name, production from Bengwenyama is fairly evenly split between palladium (24% of total forecast revenue), platinum (26%) and rhodium (28%). Twelve percent of revenue will be from chromite. Iridium is also present.
The prefeasibility report builds on an earlier scoping study which estimated a $408m project producing 330,000 oz at an all-in sustaining cost of $836/6E oz at a post tax net present value of $700m. This NPV has been upgraded to $1.06bn.
The Bengwenyama orebody neighbours Modikwa which is jointly owned by African Rainbow Minerals and Anglo American Platinum.
