Zimbabwe’s platinum mining firm Great Dyke Investments (GDI) says it is not courting any foreign investors for its multibillion-dollar Darwendale platinum project after the pull-out by Russia’s Vi Holdings.
Vi Holdings pulled out from a 50-50 joint venture in June last year after global sanctions were imposed against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
Kuvimba Mining House (KMH), a mining group wholly-owned by the Zimbabwean government, took full control of GDI after the withdrawal of the Russian investment and industrial group.
GDI mining project leader and COO Munashe Shava told journalists during a media tour that instead of looking for foreign investors, they are focusing on internally developing the project.
“I think you are all aware that the Russian and Ukraine issue brought in a new dimension to the project because the other joint venture partner was Russians and obviously, with what was happening, they had to pull out of the project,” Shava said.
Shava said a strategy has been put in place to recommence the project.
“That's what we are working on and very soon we should be back on the ground. Everything is in place. So far in the project we have put almost close to US$100m (R1.86bn).”
Shava said the capital estimate for the whole project is about US$500m (R9.3bn). “This project is now valued at over US$2.5bn (R46.39bn) with a mine life of 50-60 years,” he said.
From now onwards the developers would find their own resources for the project.
“It doesn't make sense to bring in Chinese, Americans or whoever who has got money to come in and get into a project of this magnitude and bring in their new conditions,” Shava said.
Located on the mineral-rich Great Dyke of Zimbabwe, the long-delayed project was expected to have a peak production capacity of 860,000oz of platinum group metals (PGM) a year.
Shave said the project was one of the best in the country given its proximity to Harare, high geological quality and low cost.
“It's a shallow deposit ... you can do mechanised mining which is very safe and straightforward. That's why we regard this one of the best and in terms of output the plant capacity, which is what we push for, is 3.5-million tonnes of ore processing.”
Initial development work on the project started in early 2020 and, according to Shava, exploration and feasibility studies have been completed. “GDI Darwendale project is one of the best projects in the country compared to Zimplats, Ngezi, United and Mimosa. The exploration was fully done. We are actually being accused of over-exploring it,” Shava said.
“The project has got about 44-million ounces of PGMs, so it’s by no means a small project. So the exploration is complete, the feasibility studies were completed, the execution was done, which is the development of the primary mine access, including the box and declines,” he said.
KMH, which has extensive interests in gold, nickel, lithium, chrome, and platinum, is 65% owned by the government of Zimbabwe.
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