THABAZIMBI (miningweekly.com) – Platinum mining company Northam on Thursday officially opened a R900-million smelter expansion at its Zondereinde platinum mine in Limpopo province.

The addition of a second furnace extends the JSE-listed company’s nigh 30-year-old partnership with metals company Heraeus, which contributed €20-million to the Northam smelter expansion programme.

Northam CEO Paul Dunne said at the opening, attended by Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly, that agreement had been reached to continue the partnership for another 20 years, taking it to a collective half century of corporate cooperation.

Northam’s smelting capacity has been expanded by 20 MW to 35 MW to provide a processing capacity for the company’s targeted one-million-ounce platinum group metals (PGMs) production.

The addition of a second furnace at Zondereinde is described as being a critical element of Northam's strategic growth.

"Although it is early days, it does look to be a superb piece of engineering," Dunne said of the new furnace, which lady employees had, he added, nicknamed the Mother of Dragons after Khaleesi in the Game of Thrones, on account of its great heat.

The new furnace provides the additional capacity required to treat the growing volumes from Zondereinde, Booysendal and those of Eland when it starts producing.

It has been designed to be used as a pure upper group two (UG2) furnace to accommodate the higher UG2 ore percentages, or as a conventional Merensky/UG2 furnace.

It incorporates a number of advances in the area of PGM smelting, including extended refractory lining life expectancy, metal containment and cooling, along with best practice in monitoring, tapping and furnace control.

Heraeus Precious Metals global unit president André Christl said the extended 20-year agreement embraced metal offtake, refining services and the contribution from Heraeus to the furnace investment.

“Our cooperation with Northam is a light house project for our future,” Christl commented to Mining Weekly Online.

An employer of some 100 people in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth, Heraeus globally processes mainly South African precious metals into various products.

Heraeus has been growing organically and acquisitively, establishing a new precious metals factory in China and acquiring one of the world's biggest gold refiners in Argor.

Ahead of the commissioning of the company’s second furnace at the Zondereinde platinum mine, 56% of Northam's inventory, worth R968-million, was in ore stockpiles and concentrates.

Operational since 1993, Zondereinde mines both UG2 and Merensky reefs. Given the geological complexities associated with mining the Merensky reef, the mining ratio is steadily shifting to a UG2: Merensky ratio of 60:40 to balance the depletion of the resource.

Northam, which last year acquired the Tumela block that adjoins Zondereinde from Anglo American Platinum, is through the Tumela boundary using development teams at ten levels. The additional Tumela ground will add 16.7-million ounces to the Zondereinde resource base.

The fast-growing South African platinum producer has finalised its purchase of the mothballed Eland Platinum from Glencore after announcing last year that it would acquire full ownership of Eland and its ancillary infrastructure near Brits in the North West province for R175-million.

Mining Weekly Online witnessed the handing over of new houses to employees in Northam, where the company has built 69 homes for sale.

One of the acquirers of a new 60 m² home for R500 000 is Bheki Nhleko, a 40-year-old father of four, who has been working for Northam as a laboratory assistant for the past 17 years. He was presented with the key of the door and a bottle of champagne by Christl, who was accompanied by Heraeus executives Dr Steffen Voss and Tore Prang of Germany and Dr Friedhelm Averdunk of Port Elizabeth, where Heraeus has a precious metal chemical compounds production and refinery site. Nhleko proudly opened his impressive new home to the visiting contingent, which included Mining Weekly Online. The many houses under construction are also sold to non-employees.

Accommodation Strategy 2020 is Northam’s board-approved blueprint for providing enduring accommodation solutions and housing opportunities .

The strategy, developed and approved by Northam in 2015, promotes home ownership as the preferred sustainable tenure option while acknowledging that rental and residence units, as well as company accommodation, will also be required.