Platinum Group signs MoU to build refinery in Saudi Arabia

PLATINUM Group Metals, a Canadian company studying the development of the Waterberg Project in Limpopo province, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia for construction of a PGM processing facilities in the Kingdom.The MoU, signed with Ajlan & Bros Company for Mining and the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia, will look into a smelter and a base metals refinery to be supplied with concentrate from the Waterberg Project, scoped to produce an average of 353,208 ounces in PGMs annually.The MoU forms part of Saudi Arabia’s Global Supply Chain Resilience Initiative with the facilities to be located in Saudi Arabia and builds on a cooperation agreement signed between the parties almost a year ago.In terms of this agreement, the parties undertook a study of the global PGM concentrate market and found that in addition to supply from Waterberg Project end of life autocatalysts and petrochemical catalysts, sourced from the Gulf Region, could also be supplied to the processing facilities.“Other sources of mined PGM concentrate from Southern Africa, if available, may also be considered over the longer term,” said Platinum Group today in its announcement.The cooperation agreement also allowed for a definitive feasibility study for the facilities and the formation of a 50:50 joint venture to house the assets.Platinum Group said today a “key requirement” before construction of the facilities was the “long-term approval for the export of unrefined precious metals in concentrate from South Africa”. The South African government has generally taken a dim view of exporting unrefined minerals if they can be processed in-country.There are a number of potential smelting and refining options in South Africa, such as Impala Platinum’s IRS (Impala Refining Services), but a concentrate offtake agreement is proving hard to agree, even though Implats has a 14% stake in the Waterberg Project.The smelting and refining pipeline in South Africa is said to be constrained by a shortage of base metals refining capacity. There are also a number of new PGM mines planned for South Africa despite a slump in metal prices over the past two years. Toronto’s Ivanhoe is building the second phase of its Platreef project while Southern Palladium is also planning a mine.Platinum Group said it had been working with the Government of South Africa to “identify local beneficiation opportunities and to analyse the possible impact of exporting concentrate on the value chain”.In an update of the updated study of the Waterberg Project in September, Platinum Group said it had increased the project’s mineral reserves and “minimised” its capital cost to $946m. A DFS in 2019 put a price tag of $874m on the project. Costs were also lowered while orebody continuity was improved, it said.The post Platinum Group signs MoU to build refinery in Saudi Arabia appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com