Article involving v.YMU
IMPLATS ENTERS 2001 FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS.
Just before Christmas Canadian listed Mustang Minerals announced that the River Valley Joint Venture, in which it is partnered by
South Africa's second largest platinum group metal producer Implats, has now completed 12 diamond drill holes totaling 2,713
metres of a planned 17,000 metre programme. The River Valley region near Sudbury in Ontario is considered highly prospective for
pgms and the programme is targeting contact style mineralization exposed along the 4.5 kilometer north contact and also the south
contact of the River Valley intrusion covered by the JV property.
According to Mustang drill core samples will be analyzed at XRAL Laboratories and check assays will be submitted to Chemex
Laboratories. Assay results from the 2,428 samples to be submitted will be reported on early in the New Year. Drilling will resume at
the River Valley Property in the second week of January.
Interestingly Implats itself made no mention of this progress, but that tends to be its style. It picks good partners and lets them get
on with it. That certainly appears to be the relationship between Implats and Aquarius Platinum. Until his resignation last October
the Implats' CEO Steve Kearney was on the board of Aquarius, which is now looked on as the Implats' mining arm on smaller
projects in South Africa . He has been replaced by Cathie Marckus and Implats is going through a slight management hiatus with
John Smithies, previously COO, stepping up to fill the CEO role. Smithies, however, will retire early this year and a replacement is
still being sought.
Not that you would know that there were any management problem. Implats sails serenely on, helped obviously by the price of
platinum group metals, but also by the structure and philosophy that Kearney put in place. Its joint ventures are progressing well and
just before Christmas, also, it completed the acquisition of Platexco, so the pace has not slowed down.
In the last annual report its sources of growth were cited as exploration - Mustang, strategic partnerships - Aquarius and Kroondal,
and acquisitions - Platexco. This acquisition will prove to be a very useful building block for Implats as it is the holder of mineral
rights on the Winnaarshoek property in the Eastern Bushveld, and the deal coincides with the acquisition by Implats of the rights to
mine properties adjacent to it. The combination of the reserves on all these properties gives Implats a significant platform in the
Eastern Bushveld.
The project at Winnarshoek represents a shallow high-grade deposit which - at full production - will produce about 400 000 ounces of
pgms per annum over a period of more than 30 years. Initially, anyway, the contribution of an additional 200 000 platinum ounces
annually will enable Implats to advance further towards its target of running its precious metals refinery at full capacity which is at
least 2 million ozs of platinum per annum.
In the light of this progress it is no surprise to find that in the last annual report the possibility of merging with.
Lonmin is dismissed in a fairly lofty manner. "The relationship with Lonmin plc formed by our 27 per cent holding in Lonmin Platinum
(Lonplats) has been characterised before as "unfinished business". It may be sub-optimal, but it is highly profitable at present. Any
change to this uncomfortable status quo, would have to demonstrate better returns and growth prospects." So no great
encouragement for Sir John Craven there despite his repeated ambitions to expand further in pgms.
11 January 2001
Source: minesite.com |
