Zimbabwe's Mimosa mine, the country's primary platinum group metal (pgm) producer, is set to see an increase in its output.

The mine's joint owners, Aquarius Platinum and Impala Platinum, have announced that they are to invest $23.2 million into the development of Mimosa in an effort to boost annual production capacity to 195,000 pgm ounces.

According to the two companies, the funding is to be repaid over a 24 month period and will facilitate the expansion of the Mimosa mine's concentrator capacity from 150,000 tonnes milled per month to 175,000 tonnes.

This additional capacity will come online in July this year and the mine will be able to process 100,000 platinum ounces in concentrate following the expansion, the companies said.

Last year, Mimosa produced 72,200 ounces in concentrate over the 12 months to June.

Aquarius and Impala revealed that preliminary design work on the concentrator expansion began on November 1st 2006 and the required approvals for the project have now all been received.

Ÿ Adfero Ltd