Bengwenyama platinum project targets 400K ounces annual production
Southern Palladium cuts Bengwenyama mine costs with phased strategy
Southern Palladium, a company listed on the Sydney and Johannesburg stock exchanges, has optimized its plans for mining platinum group metals (PGMs) in South Africa’s Limpopo province. The Bengwenyama project is set to gain momentum thanks to a phased development strategy.
According to Southern Palladium Managing Director Johan Odendaal in an interview with Mining Weekly, the phased approach reduces peak funding by $173 million, bringing the total to $279 million.
The step-by-step model helps reduce key geological, technical, and operational risks while allowing the project to fund production growth and associated developments with minimal capital dilution.
The first of two proposed stages targets initial production of 100,000 ounces of PGMs, scaling up to 200,000 ounces annually. The second stage, four years later, aims to reach 400,000 ounces per year, extending the mine's lifespan to over 20 years.
This phased strategy allows Southern Palladium to align project expansion with infrastructure rollout and community readiness, ensuring a more sustainable and inclusive growth path.
“The advantage is that we can finance the second phase of this project using the cash flow generated by the first phase,” Odendaal noted.
Southern Palladium owns 70% of the project, with the remaining 30% held by the Bengwenyama-ya-Maswazi community.
Located in the eastern limb of South Africa’s Bushveld Complex, Bengwenyama benefits from proximity to established mining infrastructure, enabling access to neighboring processing facilities if required.
Strategic metals in South Africa
South Africa holds 72% of the world’s known PGM reserves. The country’s growing PGM mining and processing industry is attracting strong business interest as these metals are increasingly vital to the 21st-century hydrogen economy.
According to the optimized preliminary feasibility study, the phased approach has lowered the total post-tax cost of the Bengwenyama project by 7% to R15.7 billion ($857 million), with a projected internal rate of return (IRR) of 26.4%.
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