SLP Exceeds Annual PGM Ounce Production Guidance

RNS Number : 3927K

Sylvania Platinum Limited

14 July 2011

 



Sylvania Platinum Limited

("Sylvania Platinum" or the "Company")

(ASX: SLP, AIM: SLP)

Sylvania Platinum Exceeds Annual PGM Ounce Production Guidance

The Sylvania Platinum Board today announces the following operational update on its PGM production projects, tailings retreatment operations and near surface exploration projects.

Record Production for Q4 and year ended June 2011

Sylvania Platinum continues to deliver on its production guidance at the Company's five PGM production operations and has achieved another record high PGM production volume of 11,715 oz in the quarter to 30 June 2011. This has contributed to actual PGM production volume of 41,013 oz for the financial year to June 2011, which exceeds Management guidance of 40,000 oz.

During the quarter to 30 June 2011, production from all the plants continued to progress well with the following being some of the key events:

·      The successful conclusion of the 2012 wage agreements in May 2011

·      The commissioning of the Mooinooi Heavy Media Separation ("HMS") section in May 2011

·      The commissioning of the Lannex tailings dam in April 2011

·      The commissioning of the Lannex hydro mining section in June 2011

·      The commissioning of the second mill at Mooinooi in April 2011

During the quarter the Mooinooi plant commissioned the HMS section and consequently this lead to an expected slowing of production in May and June which was more than offset by the other operations. These commissioning issues are largely resolved and it is expected that the operations will continue their steady growth profile and Management maintain their guidance of 60,000 oz to be produced during 2012 from the combined Dump Operations and Chromite Tailings Retreatment Project ("CTRP").

Sylvania Dump Operation Expansion Projects

During the quarter, the Mooinooi flotation plant expansion project was approved by the board and has commenced construction. This project remains on-track for commissioning in November 2011. In addition, the board approved the construction of a new, 6^th plant at Tweefontein. The planning process is at an advanced stage and the project remains on track to be commissioned in May 2012. Details of both these projects were announced 1^st June 2011.

Sylvania expects to announce its full quarterly results for the period ended 30^th June 2011 on or before 31^st July 2011.

Volspruit Project

Sylvania Platinum has seen further progress of its new Volspruit project and the proof of concept trials.

A large cored representative bulk sample of ore from the Volspruit mine was delivered to Mintek to perform a number of extractive capability tests. The concentrate from these tests was then smelted in the Mintek DC arc furnace and an alloy produced. Alloy was delivered to Sylvania Platinum from Mintek in February 2011. This alloy was submitted to Chemical Vapour Metal Refining, Inc. ("CVMR") in Canada for testing and the results received in June 2011 indicate the extraction of the nickel and iron through the CVMR process is as expected.

The final step in the "ore to ingot" process that Sylvania Platinum is pioneering, uses known technology where the copper is extracted through a standard autoclave process.  Management believe that this will allow the production of a PGM rich alloy marketable to any of the existing refineries world-wide for final refining.

This process also indicates that by using the CVMR process the Iron is extracted as a value add product which attracts a premium to standard Iron prices

Work on the Environmental Impact Assessment is well underway and the project remains on track for possible commencement by October 2013. Other preparatory work is progressing to plan and Sylvania expects to file a Mining Right Application with the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) in July 2011. 

The Board currently anticipates developing the Volspruit mine with two open pits feeding ore into three modular floatation plants of 100,000 ton / month ROM capacity. The first of these three plants will be built with the mine and the following two plants built later to cater for the mine production build-up. At the same time, the project plans to build a smelter and base metal refining capability that will accept the concentrate from the mine. The project plans to ultimately build two open pit mines to generate 300,000 t/mth of ore, a processing plant to produce a low grade concentrate (approx. 50 g/t platinum), a sulphur extraction process, a 10 MW DC arc furnace, an acid plant and a CVMR base metal refinery with a copper extraction autoclave to service the project.

Talks to JV this furnace section with Jubilee are still on-going and further announcements will be made on the conclusion of the negotiations

A development decision is currently planned for December 2012.

Magnetite Iron Ore Project

The Board has decided to dispose of the Magnetite Iron Ore project in a way that is beneficial to shareholders. Detailed announcements on this disposal will be made as soon as possible

Commenting today, Nigel Trevarthen, Deputy CEO, said: "We are pleased that all of Sylvania's five operating plants have shown consistent improvements in production output and continue to outperform targeted production rates. We are working on reducing costs and are striving to continue being one of the lowest cost platinum producers. Our new capital projects on increasing this ounce profile are well on track, time and budget wise.  We look forward to reporting our full financial results for the year ended 30 June 2011during the first quarter of the 2012 financial year."

Ends

For further information please contact: 

South Africa Terence McConnachie (CEO)  Sylvania Platinum Limited [phone] Louis Carroll (FD/Joint Company Secretary) Sylvania Platinum Limited [phone]	Australia Richard Rossiter (Chairman) Sylvania Platinum Limited [phone] Grant Button (Director/Joint Company Secretary) Sylvania Platinum Limited [phone]
United Kingdom Martin Eales RBC Capital Markets [phone] Anthony Rowland/ Ben Wright Ambrian Partners Limited [phone]	Laurence Read/Beth Harris Threadneedle Communications [phone]

 

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