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Gold/Mining/Energy : Mining News of Note -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LoneClone who wrote (32170)	2/4/2009 12:03:45 PM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 193936

Zimplats hit by falling metal prices Reuters Posted: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 miningmx.com [miningmx.com] -- Impala Platinum's Zimbabwe unit Zimplats Holdings Ltd said on Tuesday higher costs and lower metal prices led to an operating loss in the December quarter, despite record metal sales. Zimplats, majority-owned by South Africa's Implats, the world's second biggest platinum producer, said in a statement that due to the significant fall in metal prices, it would have a cash deficit of $22 million. Zimplats was reviewing various sources of finance, it said. The company posted an operating loss of $11.6 million, despite a jump in metal sales to 61,030 ounces during the last quarter of the year, up from 32,879 ounces previously. Operating costs rose 17 percent, the company said. In the September quarter, Zimplats posted a loss of $16.6 million. This followed ore production of 750,000 tonnes during the same period compared to 640,000 tonnes the previous quarter. On the economy, Zimplats said while it welcomed the recent introduction of the use of multiple foreign currencies in the country, there were fears in the mining sector over the government's ability to raise hard currency to fund the budget. "Ultimately the government may be forced to implement unfavourable policies on exporters to raise hard currency that in the end may make it difficult to operate the business viably." Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono on Monday revoked a special concession allowing platinum and diamond miners to keep offshore foreign currency accounts and ordered that these be held with local banks. Implats and the world's largest platinum producer, Anglo Platinum, a unit of global miner Anglo American Plc, have operations in Zimbabwe, along with gold miner Rio Tinto. Zimbabwe's miners, along with the country as a whole, have faced a severe economic crisis and the highest inflation rate in the world, officially above 231 million percent last July, and foreign currency shortages, which have forced most mines to cease operations. Zimplats said it had was making progress on the implementation of the Ngezi Phase 1 expansion project. One of the two new underground mines being built as part of the project was completed last September and the mine is expected to achieve design production capacity by June 2009. The Ngezi concentrator is scheduled to be commissioned in April 2009 with full production to be achieved by June.