Mining Weekly

Canadian miner Dundee Precious Metals (DPM) will sell its Tsumeb smelter, in Namibia, to Sinomine Resources for $49-million in cash. Tsumeb is one of the few smelters globally that can treat complex polymetallic concentrates, including those with higher arsenic content. It produces blister copper (98.5% copper), which is refined in Europe and Asia, and sulphuric acid as a by-product.

JSE-listed Murray & Roberts (M&R) says it still intends to regain a foothold in the Australian mining market, which it lost when RUC’s Australian holding company entered voluntary administration in late 2022. However, CEO Henry Laas indicates that it will adopt a capital-light approach to the building of its new Cementation APAC business, the development of which will be pursued more assertively only once the massively downscaled group has a “sustainable capital structure” in place.

ASX-listed Ionic Rare Earths has completed construction and commissioning of Phase 1 of the technical facility and demonstration plant at its Makuutu rare earths project, in Uganda. Makuutu is being developed by Ionic’s local Ugandan operating entity Rwenzori Rare Metals (RRM).

Engineering consultancy DRA Global has appointed nonexecutive director Val Coetzee as director of process and technology – an executive position – effective immediately. He will oversee the company’s process technical excellence, particularly front-end project solutions and support process teams across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

As gold mining company Tietto Minerals nears full production rates at its Abujar gold mine, in Côte d’Ivoire, it is also focusing on organic growth opportunities, while Hong Kong-based Zhaojin Capital’s unsolicited takeover offer for the company awaits further action. Zhaojin in November last year announced a proposed off-market takeover offer of A$0.58 a share for all shares in Tietto and not already owned by it. The offer has since been extended several times.

Diversified resources company Exxaro Resources has warned shareholders that it is likely to report a 16% to 30% year-on-year decrease in headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the year ended December 31. HEPS are likely to be between R42.11 and R50.63, compared with the HEPS of R60.16 reported for the 2022 financial year.

Following its recent success in securing new public and private power purchase agreements, Pele Green Energy (PGE) is already having to consider additional funding options beyond the pioneering R2.5-billion Sithala facility concluded in November with Nedbank, Norfund and the Industrial Development Corporation. The facility has, for the first time, provided the black-owned independent power producer (IPP) with a consolidated funding platform designed to enable a competitive expansion in its operating portfolio from about 1 GW to 5 GW by 2027, as well as the capital needed to develop a project pipeline. It has also enabled PGE to refinance its existing group funding with a platform facility at the holding company level.

The initial phase of the Zandfontein underground operations at TSX-V- and JSE-listed Eastern Platinum's (Eastplats') flagship Crocodile River mine, in South Africa's Bushveld Complex, is now fully operational. "It is my pleasure to announce that the soft restart of the Zandfontein underground operations is complete and fully operational.

Government and business have set a goal of increasing South Africa’s electricity generation capacity by 10.6 GW by the end of 2025 as part of ongoing collaborative efforts to tackle growth-sapping power disruptions and reduce the intensity and almost daily frequency of loadshedding by year-end. In a briefing held following the latest meeting between President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet and those senior business leaders who have committed to supporting government in overcoming its loadshedding, logistics and crime crises, the Presidency’s Rudi Dicks said the capacity could arise from multiple sources, including by recovering capacity from Eskom’s unreliable coal fleet.

This year could potentially turn out to be quite an interesting year for platinum as a commodity and also as an investment, with the 2023 platinum market deficit of 878  000 oz forecast to be followed by a 2024 deficit of 418 000 oz. In addition to automotive demand being poised to reach the seven-year-high figure of 3 297 000 oz, demand for platinum from stationary fuel cells and electrolysers is set to rise by more than 120%, amid green hydrogen projects getting under way in Europe, following oversubscribed auctions, and also in North America, where the Inflation Reduction Act is stimulating widespread development.

Canadian mineral resources exploration and development company Tsodilo Resources has withdrawn its contempt motion, which sought to hold Botswana Minerals and Energy Minister Lefoko Moagi to account for his failure to comply with an earlier High Court judgment, handed down on December 15, in relation to prospecting licences 020/2018 to 024/2018 held by Tsolido’s Botswana-based wholly owned subsidiary Gcwihaba Resources. Tsolido on March 5 said the matter had been resolved, with the five licences in question having been renewed for their first two-year renewal, which will start on April 1.

Gold steadied after surging to a record high in the previous session, boosted by expectations for US rate cuts, geopolitical tensions and the risk of a pullback for equity markets. Bullion rose to a peak of $2 141.79 an ounce on Tuesday, surpassing the previous high set in early December. The precious metal has climbed almost 5% over the last five sessions.

While the operating environment remains challenging, with macro-economic and geo-political uncertainty persisting, the medium- to long-term view of Sibanye-Stillwater remains largely unchanged on the fundamental outlook for the metals it produces, with the exception of nickel. The Johannesburg- and New York-listed green metals and gold mining company said it was confident that the price weakness of platinum group metals (PGMs) during 2023 did not signal a structural change in PGM fundamentals, such as that of the nickel market, but was more temporary in nature, Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman said during the company’s results presentation covered by Mining Weekly.

Gold miner Gold Fields has concluded the sale of its 45% effective interest in the Asanko mine, in Ghana, to Galiano Gold for $170-million plus a 1% net smelter royalty (NSR) on future production from the Nkran deposit. Gold Fields has received $65-million in cash and 28.5-million shares in Galiano as upfront proceeds for the divestment.

South Africa’s consistently advancing mining investment company Menar has signed a memorandum of agreement with the government of Gabon. “We think that Gabon is one of the promising countries when it comes to investments in mining, especially manganese and iron-ore,” Menar MD Vuslat Bayoglu highlighted during a Zoom interview with Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

South Africa’s economy escaped a technical recession in the fourth quarter as fewer rotational power cuts helped energy-intensive industries including mining and manufacturing rebound. Gross domestic product expanded 0.1% in the three months through December, compared with a contraction of 0.2% in the prior quarter, Statistics South Africa said in a report released in the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday. That undershot the 0.2% median estimate of 12 economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Eskom insists it is on track to complete the repairs to the ducts in the west stack at the Kusile power station by December 2024, ahead of the March 31, 2025, deadline set by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) when it last year authorised the use of temporary stacks that bypass the key pollution control system. The west stack was rendered inoperable when Kusile’s Unit 1 flue duct collapsed because of an uncontrolled build-up of slurry on October 23, 2022. The failure eliminated 2 100 MW of Kusile’s capacity from an already stretched system, as units 2 and 3’s flues, which share a stack or chimney with that of Unit 1, were also damaged by the collapse.

The latest assay results from uranium exploration and development company Madison Metals’ recent surface trench sampling programme at its Khan project, in Namibia, have returned an average grade of 2.78% uranium oxide (U3O8) over 4 m at Trench 6. The first ten assay results from the project were released on February 7, showing 8.47% U3O8 over 1 m in in the same trench.

Aim-listed Kefi Gold and Copper, which owns projects in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, announces that a retail offer through PrimaryBid has been successfully completed, raising gross proceeds of about £495 916, before expenses, through the issue of 82.7-million ordinary shares. This follows an announcement on March 4 of a fundraising package to facilitate full project launch at the Tulu Kapi gold project, in Ethiopia, with project launch expected to occur by mid-year.

ASX-listed Lucapa Diamond Company and its partners Endiama and Rosas and Petalas, have recovered two diamonds of over 100 ct each from the terraces of Mining Block 46 at the Lulo mine, in Angola. Both diamonds were recovered in February, with a 162 ct diamond recovered first, and a 116 ct diamond recovered the following day.