via Bulawayo24 NEWS | Zimplats underground mine collapses 18 July 2014
Platinum production at Zimplats Holdings Ltd’s largest mine in Zimbabwe has been halved following a major collapse underground, the company said on Friday.
Zimplats said there were no reports of injuries or damage to mobile equipment after the incident at the Bimha mine, located 150 miles southeast of the capital Harare and the biggest of four Zimplats-owned platinum mines.
The collapse was triggered by deterioration of ground conditions along a fault first identified in 2011, said Zimplats, a unit of world number two platinum producer Impala Platinum (Implats).
“As a result production from the Bimha Mine has been downscaled by 50 percent equating to 45,000 ounces of platinum in matte production,” Zimplats said in a statement.
Zimplats is a key source of revenue for Implats, which lost 2,800 ounces of production daily during a 19-week strike earlier this year at its Rustenburg operations in South Africa.
Zimbabwe has the world’s second-largest known platinum reserves after South Africa. Implats and fellow South African group Anglo American Platinum typically ship what they mine in the country to South Africa for refining.
COMMENTS
It does not just rain for Zimbabwe, it pours. Apa maPhDs a Bob vakango isa madegrees avo kumadziro. Takafunda…asi hatigone kuchera platinum, diamonds kana kuleader nyika kuCanaan.
Asi tinochera ma big words. “Liquidity Crunch; ZimAsset; Indibenization, Black Economic Empowerment, Psychomotor! Big words mined out of big education that produces educated consumers while the Chinese, Russians, Australians take everything. What really is this “educated” species good for? Making babies?
For your information the main use of platinum group metals is for the production of catalytic converters in motor vehicle exhaust systems. With an impoverished population of 10m with 3m being in economic exile there is no possibility of Zimbabwe developing a viable motor vehicle manufacturing industry. It is also axiomatic that the major motor vehicle manufacturers in China, India, Japan, Korea, USA, Germany, France and Italy are not going to allow a key component of their vehicles to be manufactured in a country where the politicians are thieves and the rule of law does not apply. Zimbabwe therefor has to export matte platinum to benefit at all from its platinum reserves. Zimbabwe cannot even process it to pure Platinum because it requires large amounts of reliable electricity which Zimbabwe cannot supply. Who does Zimbabwe have to thank for this state of affairs, the ZANU PF thieves, Mugabe, Mujuru, Mnangagwa, Gono, etc.
It is not constitutionally acceptable that geological consequence will spare Zimplats to pay tax equivalent full production!
nxaa