Eastern Platinum: retreatment project operations improve significantly
Eastplats has reported that the availability of the Retreatment Project as a 24-hour continuous operation (including chrome recovery plant, deposition and remining on the tailings dam) including planned maintenance has improved significantly in 2020 to 86% up from 76% in 2019.
Eastplats reported 987,003 tons of chrome concentrate production, a 68% increase from 2019 production.
On March 10, 2021, the Company and Union Goal signed updated Retreatment Project Agreements, which capitalized on Eastplats’ two years of operating knowledge and continued commitment to the long-term benefits of the Retreatment Project.
During 2020, the Company completed the refurbishment of the small-scale PGM circuit (previously the scavenger plant circuit) (“PGM Circuit D”). The Company only restarted and began operating the PGM Circuit D during Q3
2020 (following the mandatory general lockdown imposed by the Government of South Africa in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic). The Company generated approximately 134 tons of pressed filter cake PGM concentrate and delivered approximately 32.18 tons during 2020.
During early 2021, the Company completed the reconfiguring and optimization of the PGM Circuit D which also includes funding for some of the initial work required to restart the main PGM plant circuit (“PGM Main Circuit”).
Eastplats owns directly and indirectly a number of PGM and chrome assets in the Republic of South Africa. All of the Company’s properties are situated on the western and eastern limbs of the Bushveld Complex, the geological environment that hosts approximately 80% of the world’s PGM-bearing ore.
Operations at the Crocodile River Mine include re-mining and processing its tailings resource, with an offtake of the chrome concentrate to Union Goal from the Zandfontein UG2 tailings facility (the “Retreatment Project”) and the processing and extraction of platinum group metals.
