How Implats is moving to cheaper output
Production target for 2020 intact as unprofitable areas are shut and work moves to new shafts amid gloomy outlook for platinum
World number two platinum producer Impala Platinum (Implats) is steadily cutting unprofitable areas from its mines, replacing them as quickly as it can with cheaper output from its two new mines to reduce the flow of below-cost metal to the market. Implats shut five mines and parts of 12 Shaft in recent years and it will close four more shafts over the next three years near Rustenburg on the Bushveld Igneous Complex, a 2-billion-year-old saucer-shaped platinum group metal, chrome and base metal deposit stretching west to east from Rustenburg to Steelpoort in Limpopo. Implats’s Rustenburg mines make up the bulk of its production and the company has a target of 800,000oz of refined platinum a year from 2020, but continuing weak prices for the basket of metals it produces are complicating progress to that level of production. The target and date remain intact despite the price of the basket of metals Implats produces hovering around R21,000/oz, the same as a decade ago. Costs, however,...
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