VOLATILITY
Tharisa locks in Chinese chrome supply contract
Chrome and platinum miner Tharisa secured a five-year supply contract for 240,000 tonnes of chrome concentrate a year to a Chinese customer as the market adjusts from an enormous inflow of illegally mined chrome from SA. With prices recovering to above $200 a tonne after dropping to a year’s low of about $130 a tonne for chrome concentrate, the flow of about 1-million tonnes a year of illegally mined chrome from SA had largely dried up as the police and Department of Mineral Resources clamped down, said Tharisa CE Phoevos Pouroulis. Illegally mined concentrate had a considerable effect on the market as volumes rose over 24 months to 1-million tonnes a year by the end of 2016, when chrome prices were double what they were now, he said.
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