Russian Consortium signs agreement with Zimbabwe on platinum mining

The Russian Consortium has decided to invest about $ 1.6 billion to implement a mining project to develop one of the world's largest platinum deposits. A Memorandum of Understanding is scheduled to be signed with the Zimbabwean government in September to develop a platinum mine.

Zimbabwean Minister Walter Chidakwa said that Vi Holding Holding LLC, ROSTEK and Vnesheconombank also show interest in the Darwendale platinum project and plan to take part in its implementation. The Darwendale project has 19 tonnes of proven platinum reserves and 775 tonnes of metals, including palladium, gold, nickel and copper.

The Darwendale project will involve the development of a mine, construction of an ore processing concentrator and a PGM metallurgical plant. The group decided to develop the project in several stages. During the first stage, only the mine will be prepared, and the plant will be installed later. At the first stage, the amount of investments will be about 400-500 million dollars.

The quarry will start mining and operations next year. Chidakwa and the Minister of Finance were already in Russia in July and had a fruitful discussion with members of the Russian group and representatives of the banks. Recently, Vi Holding Holding bought a 40 percent stake in Ruschrome Mining through a Russian-African joint venture that holds a mining license from the Darwendale platinum mine.

Ruschrome is partly owned by the Zimbabwean government and the Center for Business Cooperation with Foreign Countries, an association of mechanical engineering and defense firms, which will hold 10 shares in the project.