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Emerging copper producer Copper 360 has shipped copper concentrate from South Africa's Northern Cape province for the first time in 21 years.
South Africa's only listed pure copper producer, which delivered record concentrate grades during plant commissioning, is performing way ahead of expectation as a producer of copper concentrate, as well as being the Northern Cape's only producer of copper cathode.
"We salute the tenacity and spirit of the people of Namaqualand who support us tremendously and the drive and passion of our team," said Copper 360 CEO Jan Nelson, who spoke to Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)
The company is building up from a very low base to one that will be generating over R100-million in monthly revenue.
Nama Copper, the first concentrate plant of this Johannesburg Stock Exchange's AltX-listed company, has generated a profit within six weeks.
The second concentrate plant, the MPF 1 plant, is on track to come on line in two months.
Two months ago, Copper 360's solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX/EW ) broke even.
Meanwhile, achieving 30%-plus grade during commissioning is regarded as remarkable during the five weeks of commissioning, when 70 t of concentrate was the outcome - 76% more than the targeted 40 t.
Based on this performance, the plant is forecast to produce more than 1 000 t of concentrate a month within three months, two months ahead of planned production.
The target capacity of the second concentrate plant, which is due to start production at the end of July, is 1 400 concentrate tonnes a month.
In addition, the copper-cathode producing SX/EW, which delivered a record performance in March by producing 60 t of pure copper metal, is on track to ramp up to 100 t of copper a month within the next quarter.
Mining Weekly: Could this be the far-reaching start of a crucial new copper era for South Africa's Northern Cape, which is so prospective for base metals so crucial to a world that is electrifying at a fast pace?
Nelson: Absolutely. This was one of the biggest copper districts during the 1940s to the 1980s. You had Newmont and Gold Fields mining here. There were shafts sunk 2 000 m deep and a lot of these mines are still open with large orebodies. I certainly think that with this production initiating, this area will definitely be the revival of South Africa as a major copper player.
Is Copper 360's 30%-plus concentrate grade delivery likely to be sustained?
Absolutely. Our test work showed initially that the copper concentrate grades were between 40% and 50%, which is extremely high. On average, companies produce at about 24%. For us to achieve 30% concentrate grades during commissioning is phenomenal because you have quite a lot of problems during commissioning. You don't have consistent feed, your plant is still building up. To have that from the get-go is just fantastic and shows us that 40% to 50% in the future will be easily achievable.
How did Copper 360 manage to exceed its planned copper concentrate production target by a whopping 76%.
Buying a plant that was ready to go obviously played a big role, but it's also due to the fantastic team that we have on the ground. Our people have really put in a considerable effort. We've appointed a new plant manager, as announced, and we have a new operation manager in place, but it's just exceptional teamwork that pulled out all the stops.
What are the new expectations, now, for your recently acquired Nama Copper plant, in view of the way it has been able to streak ahead of targeted performance?
Over the next three months, it will build up to about 1 000 concentrate tonnes. It's going to produce close to 350 t of copper metal, and we'll generate something close to about R50-million to R60-million in revenue. Not only will that plant pay itself back in four months, but the production ramp up is not a problem because we've

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Copper production increasing by 11% as Quellaveco achieved its highest plant throughput rate in Peru, while Collahuasi and El Soldado in Chile benefitting from higher copper grades were among the first-quarter performance aspects that pleased diversified mining company Anglo American in the three months ending March 31.
"We're driving operational excellence across our assets, focusing on stability and effective cost management as levers to deliver significant value through the cycle," Anglo CE Duncan Wanblad highlighted in a release to Mining Weekly on Tuesday.
"We're progressing through our asset review to optimise value by simplifying and improving the overall quality of the portfolio," he added.
With copper now representing 30% of total production, the business is being set up to deliver and grow into the major demand themes against the backdrop of several organic medium-term copper growth options.
Steelmaking coal production also increased by 7%, owing to the performance at the Aquila longwall and Capcoal opencast operations in Australia, the London- and Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company stated in the First Quarter Anglo American Production Report.
Anglo diamond mining and marketing company De Beers, the report noted, implemented changes to lower its diamond production for the year by about three-million carats.
This, combined with 7% lower production of 834 000 oz from Anglo's platinum group metals (PGMs) operations resulted in flat production for the group overall when compared with the first three months of 2023. The lower PGMs production reflected expected lower volumes from the Kroondal PGMs mine, which is reported as third-party purchase of concentrate from November 2023, and lower production at the underground Amandelbult PGMs mine in Limpopo.
Iron-ore production was flattened by the planned logistics-linked decrease to 15.1-milion tonnes at South Africa's Kumba Iron Ore offsetting the 4% production rise at Minas-Rio in Brazil.
Full-year diamond production guidance has also been lowered to 26-million carats to 29-million carats, with unit costs revised up to $90/carat.
Realised prices were all down except for diamonds. The biggest realised price fall was 61% for rhodium. Other big realised price falls were for palladium, which was 38% down, nickel, which was 37% down, Minas-Rio iron-ore, which was 38% down, the PGMs basket price, which was 30% down.
PGM METAL IN CONCENTRATE
Anglo's own mined production decreased by 14% to 504 300 oz on the disposal of Kroondal. Excluding Kroondal, production decreased by 6% owing to lower production from Amandelbult and Mototolo. Mogalakwena produced 219 500 oz, which was flat year-on-year.
Production at Amandelbult decreased by 16% to 127 100 oz on lower recoveries and plant equipment breakdowns.
Production at Mototolo fell 10% to 61 900 oz, caused by mining equipment breakdowns and challenging ground conditions as a section of the mine reaches its end of life.
The Unki PGMs mine in Zimbabwe produced 62 800 oz, in line with the same period of last year.
The purchase of concentrate increased by 5% to 329 800 oz, reflecting the transition of Kroondal to a 100% third-party purchase of concentrate arrangement. Normalising the comparative period to include 100% of Kroondal, results in a 10% decrease reflecting lower third-party receipts.
Refined PGM production was flat at 628 000 oz. In the first quarter of every year, refined production is typically at its lowest, due to the annual stock count and planned maintenance at processing assets.
KUMBA IRON ORE
Kumba's quarterly production declined to 9.3-million tonnes, driven by a 12% decrease at Kolomela to 2.7-million tonnes. The operationally stable Sishen iron-ore mine lifted production by 4% to 6.6-million tonnes.
Kumba's iron-ore sales fell 12% to 8.4-million tonnes, primarily as a result of equipment reliability challenges at the Saldanha Bay

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Diversified mining company Anglo American is taking steps to help to restore an Amazon rainforest equivalent of which less than 10% remains intact.
The Mata Atlántica carbon forest is located near Anglo's Minas-Rio iron-ore mine, in Brazil.
Anglo intends playing a role in the recovery of the rich biome by reforestation amounting to more than 2 000 ha a year and the removal of 600 000 t of carbon-dioxide equivalent a year.
This news emerged during the London- and Johannesburg-listed mining major's sustainability performance update, opened by CE Duncan Wanblad. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)
This included how its integrated approach to sustainability is unlocking value and securing its ability to deliver responsible long-term growth in future-enabling metals and minerals.
"While mining footprints are comparatively small, we believe we can play a positive role," Anglo nature and land head Ian Hudson stated during the webinar covered by Mining Weekly.
"We already have over 20 000 ha of this important biome under our management. Across our operations in Brazil, we undertake compensation and restoration works to increase that local biodiversity surrounding our operations," Hudson added.
Wanblad described sustainability as a pre-requisite for value creation in mining, through the delivery of operational excellence, portfolio improvement, and growth.
"Our sustainability and technology capabilities, and our approach to customer-centric marketing of our metal and mineral products, position us strongly as a partner of choice and thereby to create enduring value for all our stakeholders.
"Together, these are central to what we see as a competitive advantage in how we develop projects such as Quellaveco, Woodsmith and Sakatti, designed as the next generation of our FutureSmart Mines, with enhanced sustainability outcomes," said Wanblad.
Anglo sustainability director Helena Nonka emphasised the embedding of sustainability by the group into its strategy and value creation model, "from portfolio choices to our everyday operational decisions".
"One such example of our integrated approach is our work on nature, for which there are numerous compelling business cases, such as significant reductions in closure and rehabilitation costs, but also helping build greater trust in mining as societal expectations of our industry continue to increase in parallel with the need for essential metals and minerals.
"The health of our business is dependent on a healthy environment and we recognise the value of being able to share how our business measures and manages its key interfaces with nature so that our stakeholders can be confident in our approach to achieving a net positive impact on biodiversity," Nonka added.
INTEGRATED APPROACH TO NATURE
Nature rightly continues to gain momentum on the global agenda, with increased recognition of the threats to nature, its societal importance and the value of nature-based solutions to tackle climate change impacts, Anglo stated in a media release.
Its pathway to achieving net biodiversity gains in the areas it operates began with the implementation of its biodiversity standard at the end of 2018.
This standard defines how Anglo measures, assesses and manages biodiversity across its value chain and mining lifecycle - through to closure and regeneration.
Detailed baseline assessments across all managed operations have been completed. These define and assess significant biodiversity features, including habitats, species and ecosystems to protect and further restore.
In addition, a biodiversity management programme has been developed for each of its sites.
The plans are also used to feed into regional and national biodiversity programmes, adding value beyond its own site work.
"We're exploring partnerships, biomonitoring programmes and pioneering measurement metrics to support net positive impacts.
This includes the group's p

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The richness of South Africa's copper assets were emphasised on Monday when Northern Cape mine developer and explorer Orion Minerals published a standout intercept that sent its shares rocketing up 58% on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).
Orion, headed by CEO Errol Smart, is primarily listed on the ASX, where it has 1 300 shareholders, and secondarily listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), where it has 28 000 shareholders.
Prieska is its flagship development, where trial mining is already under way, and Okiep will be the district of its Flat Mines mining development, while two exploration projects are also under way.
"Prieska is the big chocolate cake. There are not very many cherries in Prieska, it's just a massive chocolate.
"Okiep is a chocolate cake with a whole lot of cherries mixed in and you keep finding these, and that's what we've seen today," said Smart.
Nothing like the high-grade copper intercept in the Flat Mines area of Okiep copper project, of 4.89% copper at 49 m and including 12.47% copper at 10.23 m, has been seen in South Africa in the last 40 years.
"Yes, it's in a zone where there were known intersections but at least now we've proved that it isn't a fluke, it isn't a one-off. There's a large zone of very high-grade mineralisation at this site," Smart during a webinar in Australia, covered by Mining Weekly.
"I had a federal trader in Sydney last week that was saying to me if you guys have got anything above 11%, we'll take it as direct shipping ore, they'll collect the broken rock at the mine portal and drive it away. That puts us into the context of what it is and it puts Okiep in the context of what this district is.
"The original Okiep mined over 900 000 t of hand-sorted ore at 21% copper. That's just unheard of. There aren't deposits like that in the world.
"But on our properties, the Okiep mine is also on one of our prospecting rights. There are deposits like this and we've got large known mineralised bodies that haven't been drilled out, and we see huge opportunity here," Boksburg-born Smart added.
Orion has a large undrawn facility from South Africa's Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and from Triple Flag, a precious metals streaming and royalty company, for its Prieska project, and has just done an IDC drawdown for Okiep as well.
Okiep has two development projects and two exploration projects that are well advanced and can add value relatively quickly in the Northern Cape, which has 30% of South Africa's land mass and only 3% of its population.
Historically, the Prieska and Okiep districts, which currently hardly produce at all, have collectively produced about 2.5-million tons of copper.
In consolidating over the last seven years, Orion has done more than 17 acquisitions involving mineral rights and data in an area that was strongly explored by mining majors such as Newmont, AngloVaal, Anglo American and Gold Fields in the 80s and 90s, which opens a door to advanced-stage projects for development.
Orion's flagship is the Prieska mine, which produced 46-million tons from a single, consolidated orebody.
Orion, with 31-million tons of resource there currently, expects this to rise to 50-million tons of resource.
AngloVaal, which developed the mine, in 1971 took it down to 1 200 m, with stoping stopped at 970 m. The mine's deepest ore is predeveloped with shafts and decline roadways to the bottom of the orebody.
Orion believes that it can produce 22 000 t/y of copper and about 79 000 t of zinc for 12 years at Prieska.
The feasibility study that determined this was done at a time when the copper price was $6 600/t and the zinc price $2 300/t, compared with today's zinc prices of $2 850/t and the copper price was touching on $10 000/t on Friday.
A team of 200, including 20 professionals, run Prieska, which is in a trial mining phase of up to 40 000 t a month.
The cornerstone of the financing is in pla

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discussing palladium and platinum playing a key role in battery electric vehicles; the opportunity around the market development aspect of the platinum group metals industry; and talk of South Africa being well placed to benefit from huge green hydrogen outlook.

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The emerging use of electrofuel (eFuel) as an interchangeable substitute for petrol, diesel and aviation fuel has the potential to create important new demand for Southern Africa's platinum group metals (PGMs).
This is because eFuel is a combination of green hydrogen and waste carbon dioxide (CO2) and demand for PGMs will arise when proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers are used to generate the green hydrogen. PGMs and PEMs go hand-in-glove.
Infinium founder and CEO Robert Schuetzle made mention of this in a Zoom interview with Mining Weekly and reported that one of the two electrolysers chosen for his company's recently launched eFuels facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, is a PGM-using PEM system. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)
Two electrolysis platforms were chosen by Infinium to gain procurement, commissioning, construction and now operational experience of the two platforms and their integration with eFuels.
"We'll need massive amounts of electrolysis for our eFuels facilities, so that could be a driver for PGMs in the PEM category," said Schuetzle.
Infinium is a technology owner and a project developer. It has a patent portfolio approaching 200 patents globally and manufactures its own proprietary catalysts in-house.
It has about a dozen projects at various stages of development globally, including the Roadrunner project in West Texas, and the Reuze project in Dunkirk, France, which is being developed with Engie and ArcelorMittal.
"We now have eFuels mandates in the EU as well as the UK. We know other geographies are looking at import benefits and a number of incentives around eFuels. While it's a new topic today, in the coming years, you'll see that accelerate and you'll see adoption of eFuels in customers' decarbonisation goals accelerate.
"It's close to a net zero carbon fuel solution and it doesn't require infrastructure changes because it's not a new specification. This is a drop-in transportation fuel, which, again, makes it easier for our customers to help achieve their decarbonisation goals," Schuetzle emhasised.
SOUTH AFRICA LINK
Interestingly, the PGM-promoting and South Africa-linked venture capital company, AP Ventures, is not only an investor in Infinium but a contributor that Schuetzle ranks as a strategic partner: "We work with them regularly on partnership opportunities, on project opportunities, on strategy."
"What I appreciate most about the AP Ventures team is their thought leadership in this industry, and the connections they're able to make," said Schuetzle.
With its proprietary technology, Infinium eFuels include sustainable eSAF aviation fuel, which can be used in today's aircraft fleet.
An e-diesel that can be used in long-haul transport, shipping or maritime applications anywhere that diesel is used is also produced, along with a naphtha product that is lighter than the diesel and the eSAF, but is used in petrochemical applications for the production of plastics.
"Because we use waste CO2 that would otherwise be emitted to atmosphere, these fuels, when produced, are very close to net zero carbon fuels that our customers such as Amazon and American Airlines, can use directly in their vehicle fleets to help achieve their decarbonisation goals," Schuetzle emphasised.
What is Infinium's background?
Infinium has a long history through our predecessor company that was focused on small-scale gas-to-liquids, very similar to the eFuels technology. But going back 15 years, our technology platform was focused on converting natural gas or waste gases like flare gas into fuels and chemicals. It's an area called gas-to-liquids. There are some major players that do it at very large scale, such as Shell and Sasol, but our platform operates at a very small scale due to our proprietary technology. Then, from that gas-to-liquids environment, a number of years ago we shifted to really focus on eFuels, very similar te