Eland Platinum Starts Open-Pit Mining


- Eland Platinum Holdings initiated open pit mining at its Elandsfontein project near Brits, South Africa, in January 2007. The first production blast broke about 300,000 mt of rock in the mine’s western UG2 boxcut. Commissioning of the Elandsfontein concentrator is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2007, by which time some 600,000 mt of ore from the open-pit will have been stockpiled.

At initial steady-state operation, the Elandsfontein project is expected to produce 160,000 oz/y of 4E PGMs (platinum, palladium, rhodium, and gold) at a run-of-mine grade of 3.00 g/mt 4E and a metallurgical recovery of 55%.

Open-pit mining will take place over the next five years, with production increasing to about 270,000 oz/y of 4E by 2012.

Underground development at Elandsfontein will begin in December 2007, and by 2012, all production will be from the underground operation. Metal production from underground ore is expected to continue at 270,000 oz/y, but grades will improve to 3.54 g/mt 4E and metallurgical recovery will improve to 79%.

The Elandsfontein platinum project is exploiting the UG2 reef and has SAMREC- compliant proven and probable UG2 resources of 42 million mt, grading 3.41 g/mt 4E and containing 4.6 million oz 4E. The property’s Merensky reef potential has not yet been defined.