VALTERRA Platinum is considering using metals processing technology developed by Tharisa to recover and process fine chrome at its operations.
This is according to a JSE announcement by Tharisa on Thursday, which also disclosed it had signed a concentrate offtake agreement with Valterra for platinum group metals.
The offtake deal secures 50% of total concentrate produced by Tharisa at its North West mine, also called Tharisa, and replaces an agreement with Sibanye-Stillwater. While the offtake terms with Valterra are “comparable” to those of the earlier Sibanye-Stillwater deal, the agreement runs for longer, Miningmx understands.
The balance of the Tharisa mine’s concentrate will continue to be supplied to Northam Platinum in terms of an existing agreement between the two companies.
“With the pilot plant complete and testing under way, we are taking a tangible step towards deploying our proprietary fine chrome recovery technology,” Tharisa CEO Phoevos Pouroulis said in a statement. The company’s Vulcan X technology is not yet at commercial-scale production but is operating successfully.
For Valterra, Tharisa’s technology will most likely be applied to its tailings operations. The deal also suggests that Valterra’s chrome strategy, alluded to by CEO Craig Miller at the firm’s half-year results in July, is moving along. “We’re pretty well advanced on our plans, both at Mogalakwena and the potential at Mototolo,” Miller said at the time, without providing details.
On Thursday, he said: “Our collaboration on fine chrome recovery and beneficiation is an important part of advancing opportunities to unlock value and enhance cash flow margins at Valterra Platinum.”
Details of a potential commercial arrangement on the technology transfer were not provided in Tharisa’s statement, but it could involve production participation.
“We recall the arrangement with Lonmin where Tharisa operated a plant financed by Lonmin and secured upside to the base operating fee, via sharing output over a base production level,” UK bank Peel Hunt said in a note on Thursday.
“We suspect this is at a relatively early stage, but seems an opportunity for Tharisa to monetise its technological prowess from its development of its Vulcan fine chrome recovery plant,” it added.
In August, Tharisa and Valterra signed a five-year concentrate offtake agreement for Karo Platinum, Tharisa’s $545m project in Zimbabwe.