ZIMBABWE PLATINUM will not build a platinum refinery until the country achieves an adequate level of feedstock.
While the firm supports the idea of investing in a refinery to add value to local production and increase earnings, the board will not take the risk of building a redundant plant if it does not receive assurances.
Muchadeyi Masunda, chairperson of Zimbabwe Platinum, told Mining Weekly that it would only work if the plant could operate "24-hours a day".
"Once you stop the plant, the start-up costs are high. We are hopeful that Unki and Mimosa (the other platinum mines in Zimbabwe) will join forces [with us] so that we can get platinum from three sources. Once we do that, we can talk of a refinery," he explained.
Zimbabwe Platinum is currently expanding its operations in the country to increase platinum production to 160,000 oz a year from 2010.
It is spending $340 million on the expansion to boost production which was 96,500 oz a year in 2007.
A copper refinery at Alaska mine, north of Harare, collapsed in the late 1990s after running out of feedstock following the closure of Mhangura Copper Mines, a subsidiary of the State-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation.
The Alaska refinery got most of its feedstock from Mhangura, with some coming from as far as Canada and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but once the local mine wound up operations, weighed down by heavy debt, the refinery grounded to a halt.
“We tried to do that at Mhangura, where I was [also] chairperson,” says Masunda.
“We were toll-refining copper matte from Canada and other countries but once Mhangura was closed, we started facing problems with respect to feedstock.”
Botswana has established a diamond-processing plant to increase the revenue of its robust diamond industry.
Such a model would help boost foreign currency earnings for Zimbabwe once platinum output increases.
Zimplats is currently undertaking a US$340-million expansion programme at its mines in Zimbabwe to increase production to 160 000 oz of platinum a year from 2010.
Production in 2007 was at 96 500 oz/y.
There have been suggestions that, owing to the projections of high output levels at Zimplats, a subsidiary of the world’s second-largest platinum firm, South Africa’s Impala Platinum, a refinery should be built to add value to the mineral before it is sold on the international market.
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