latinum producer Karo Platinum last week officially launched the Karo platinum project, in Chegutu, Zimbabwe.
“We are excited about partnering with Zimbabwe and its people in building a long-term and sustainable business,” Karo chairperson Loucas Pouroulis said in a statement.
Karo will spend $8-million on a geological exploration programme to confirm and delineate the orebody before progressing to the bankable feasibility study.
Karo considers this to be a highly prospective area, which is estimated to contain some 96-million ounces of platinum-group metals (PGMs) at a projected resource grade of 3.2 g/t on a platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold, or 4E, basis.
The project is expected to deliver about 14.4-million tons of run-of-mine ore a year.
The conceptual designs are based on the operation of four openpit mining operations, the first of which will begin operating in 2020.
“The scalable nature of the project allows for a staged transition to underground operations at a later date, and material will be processed by Karo Refining.”
At steady state, the platinum mining complex is expected to produce 1.4-million ounces of refined PGMs a year. The refinery will treat up to two-million ounces of PGMs a year, providing an additional 600 000 oz for toll refining by other PGM producers in the country.
The integrated mining and refining complex includes the establishment of a 300 MW solar power plant, which will feed power into the Zimbabwe electricity grid.