A senior figure at Platinum Australia explained yesterday (27th October) that its Smokey Hills mine continues to rank alongside the lowest costing PGM producers in the industry.

The company has confirmed that the first rock was sent to the crushing section of the processing plant at the mine - which is located on the eastern rim of the Bushveld Complex - at the end of last week.

Now Managing Director John Lewins has noted that it has reduced the company's projected average on-site production cost to under $200 per oz 4E PGM, giving a total cost of around $300 per oz 4E PGM, including smelting and refining expenses.

He said: "This provides a margin of over $300 per oz 4E PGM at the current extremely depressed metal prices (platinum $800 per oz, palladium $180 per oz and rhodium $1,800 per oz) and, given our current level of hedging, this margin increases to approximately $350 per oz 4E PGM.

"A further effect of the fall in the rand is that, since all the debt component of our funding for Smokey Hills was provided in rand, this has significantly reduced the debt in terms of US dollars."

The on-site treatment plant at Smokey Hills has a design capacity of 720,000 tonnes per year and will provide around 95,000 oz 4E PGM per year contained in a flotation concentrate.



Source:

PLA sends first rock to Smokey crusher (27/10/08)
http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page674?oid=71496&sn=Detail