JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Emerging platinum miner Platfields said on Friday that it was compelled to put exploration activity largely on hold during its financial year ended February 28, citing its inability to attract investment interest owing to the “turbulence” currently experienced in the South African mining industry – particularly in the platinum sector.

The struggling junior said it would continue to raise capital and had recently entered into new negotiations after all investment talks were last year terminated.

Platfields CEO Bongani Mbindwane added in a statement of its results that the directors and employees of the group had resolved not to receive salaries for the period under review as part of the group’s strategy to sustain itself during a “cash crisis”.

“We remain hopeful that we will raise sufficient cash to progress the next phase of our exploration programme, albeit with caution under prevailing market conditions. Platfields’ primary focus in the immediate future is on raising capital and conducting additional exploration in relation to the Leeuwkop project,” he averred.

Platfield’s exploration portfolio included the Limpopo-based Leeuwkop project, which consisted of a single new order platinum-group metals (PGM) prospecting right, and was estimated to be worth R44-million.

The group was in the process of restructuring its inter-company rights and would make the appropriate applications to the Department of Mineral Resources.

Platfields also held prospecting rights for PGMs at the Berg project, in Mpumalanga, which was valued at R32-million.

The Marula project, meanwhile, was a gold target in the Transvaal Drakensberg goldfield, comprising a new order prospecting right for gold over four farms in the magisterial district of Pilgrims Rest, in Mpumalanga.

“The group has some of its rights under reapplication owing to their impending expiry. The applications are in the form of rights retention application and we await the response from [the] DMR in this regard and are confident that the application will be granted, as is the norm under the circumstances and economics considerations,” said Mbindwane.

As Platfields was still in the exploration phase of its development, it did not yet generate any cash from its activities, posting a net loss for the period of R6.4-million.