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Zimplats swings back to profit after revenue, output jump

HarareImpala Platinum’s unit in Zimbabwe has swung back into profit making although the outlook for commodity prices remains weak, after it ramped up profits, revenues and production in the quarter to the end of September.


The Australia-listed Zimplats said its profit and revenue jump had been boosted by increased output from an open pit mine brought on line to cover for lost production from the collapsed Bimha mine.

The Bimha mine is scheduled for re-opening in 2018, Zimplats said, also adding that refurbishment of its refinery facility at Selous will be “hot-commissioned” in July next year.

Profits after royalty payments for the quarter period to the end of September rose by a massive 118% to $5.9m compared to a loss of $32.5m for the quarter to the end of June this year. Operating costs declined by 4%, while revenue firmed by 67% to $108m.

The revenue increase has been attributed to “the net effect of a 93% increase in 4E sales volumes” for the period. Management had also kick-started a cost rationalisation exercise to preserve cash.

Ore produced by the Zimbabwean mines owned by Implats through the Zimplats subsidiary increased by 10% from the previous quarter. This was mainly due to an increase of 117 400 tonnes in ore mined from the open-pit operation.

“Production from the underground mines increased by 32 900 tonnes compared to the previous quarter. The Bimha Mine redevelopment project is progressing well and the mine is on schedule to reach full production in April 2018 as planned,” Zimplats said.

Head grade for the period was marginally lower owing to the larger amount of low grade ore mined from the open pit mine. However, ore milled volumes and resultant platinum group metals concentrate produced firmed by 14% despite a marginally lower recovery rate.

The Zimplats smelter processed about 34 834 tonnes of concentrate metal and produced 133 505 ounces of platinum, a massive 88% rise on the previous quarter. However, there was an outage at the Zimplats smelter, which had affected the previous quarter’s production, resulting in 11 413 tonnes being stock-piled.

The previous quarter metal in converter matte production was adversely affected by the smelter outage which resulted in 11 413 tonnes of unprocessed concentrate by the end of the quarter.

The concentrates stockpiled in the previous quarter were not smelted in the current quarter due to capacity constraints at the smelter.”

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