Name of the Project
Vulcan chrome plant.

Location
The project will be located near Brits, in South Africa’s North West province.

Project Owner/s
Tharisa Mining.

Project Description
The construction of the Vulcan plant is key to Tharisa’s Vision 2020 strategy, which is targeting production of two-million tonnes a year of chrome concentrate and 200 000 oz/y of platinum-group metals by 2020.

The Vulcan process will extract fine chrome from current in-line tailings from the combined feed of Tharisa’s Genesis and Voyager plants using existing technologies in fine chrome recovery, which will lead to an estimated 47% reduction in chrome tailings.

The project will increase chrome recovery from 65% to 82%, thereby adding an estimated 400 000 t/y of chrome concentrate to the company’s production.

The plant will have a capacity of 500 t/h.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
Not stated.

Capital Expenditure
$54.2-million.

Planned Start/End Date
The project was expected to start in August and hot commissioning is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2020.

Latest Developments
Tharisa expects to have funding for its Vulcan plant in place by the end of September, to complete its South African processing plant set-up.

Tharisa CEO Phoevos Pouroulis has said that funding for Vulcan will be slightly less than the R760-million figure in its 2019 annual report because of work already done preparing the site.

There have been delays building Vulcan because of the Covid-19 epidemic and the South African government’s shutdown of the economy at the end of March before the gradual relaxing of restrictions in subsequent months.

“We estimate with the delays and challenges we’ve had in recent months that it will take 12 months to build Vulcan from the time we secure financing. Our intention is to get financing in place this quarter,” Pouroulis has said.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
Wood (definitive feasibility study and engineering, procurement and construction manager).

On Budget and on Time?
Too early to state.

Contact Details for Project Information
Tharisa investor relations Daniel Thole, tel +27 11 996 3500 or email dthole@tharisa.com; or Ilja Graulich, email igraulich@tharisa.com.