Braemore plans new smelters for South African platinum

The chief executive of Braemore Resources, Hamish Bohannan, has raised concerns about South Africa’s ability to process higher levels of platinum.

Braemore specialises in the technology used to turn nickel and platinum group metal (PGM) ore into metal and its chief executive believes there will be a need to build five new processing facilities, at a cost of up to $1.25 billion, as a result of the rapid growth in new platinum projects.

Putting aside the increased demand from new projects, much of the PGM processing technology in South Africa is more than 30 years old and was designed to process Merensky reef and not UG2, the other major platinum bearing ore.

Almost 80% of the global annual supply of platinum comes from the Bushveld, which spans the North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces.

Addition volume of PGM concentrate should be available in the next five years and will require three to four new smelters to be built on the Bushveld igneous complex. In addition, there will be a need for at least one base metals refinery.

Mr Bohannan expects Braemore to have its first full-scale commercial smelter in place by 2009.
The plant will process 360,000 tons of PGM concentrate annually, as well as 30,000 tons of nickel metal and up to 15,000 tons of copper metal.

A feasibility study for the project is scheduled for completion by March 2008.