Crocodile River Mine

 mine, platinum mine/processing

This is the mining right for the Crocodile River Platinum Mine (CRM) which is divided into 4 major mining blocks: Maroelabult, Zandfontein, Crocette, and Kareespruit. The operating sections of the mine consist of the farms De Kroon 444, De Kroon 444 JQ, Zandfontein 447 and Krokodildrift 446 JQ. These are covered under New Order Mining Rights numbers 78, 151, 307, 332 and 363 issued between December 2006 and January 2009. All other areas of interest are covered by Prospecting Rights which can be converted to New Order Mining Rights should any exploration work be positive.

Barplats Mining Limited is 100% owner of CRM and the ownership of Barplats is: Eastern Platinum (Eastplats) with 74%, and a BEE partner 26%. The BEE partner is a consortium that was headed by Penuell Maduna who was a former minerals and energy minister of South Africa. The BEE partner gained its interest in a 2005 R173 million empowerment deal. On June 28, 2016 Eastplats announced a deal where would sell Barplats to China-based Hebei Zhongheng Tianda Platinum. However, on November 24, 2017 Eastplats announced that it had completed a final settlement with Hebei to terminate the original purchase agreement, thus keeping Barplats and CRM owned by Eastplats.

Crocodile River is located on the western limb of the Bushveld Ingeous Complex (BIC). The BIC was intruded about 2,060 million years ago into rocks of the Transvaal Supergroup along an unconformity between the Magaliesberg quartzites (Pretoria Group) and the overlying Rooiberg felsites (a dominantly felsic volcanic precursor). The BIC is one the largest mafic/ultramafic layered intrusions in the world, covering an extent exceeding 66,000km2 and a maximum thickness of 8km. It compromises the largest known Platinum Group Metals resource in the world. The mafic component of the BIC hosts layers rich in PGE’s, nickel, copper, chromium and vanadium. Only the UG2 is mined at CRM.

The Upper Critical Zone of the Rustenburg Layered Suite outcrops extensively, striking in an east-west direction and dipping to the north from about 15° to 25°. Both the Merensky Reef and the UG2 CL outcrop in the area, with a middling of approximately 200m. The UG2 CL occurs from outcrop down to an estimated depth of at least 2,000m below surface. The UG2 CL at CRM typically consists of a single chromitite layer some 1.35m to 1.5m thick. The chromatitic leader hangingwall layers are generally absent or have coalesced with the main band to form a virtually homogenous chromitite. A very thin chromitite stringer (~1mm thick) occurs at varying heights above the top of the chromitite in the immediate hangingwall.

Zandfontein is accessed by four separate declines and a vertical shaft. Declines 1 to 4 provide access from separate portals on surface to different areas in the mining area. Decline 4 splits up into two different declines underground with the split referred to as Decline 5. All declines are designed at the same parameters which is trackless footwall declines going down at 9° and at 35⁰ below strike. The stoping method used is conventional breast mining. Advance strike gullies spaced at 21.5m are 1.5m wide and 2.8m deep and will be developed on reef. The panel width will be maintained below 22.5m for stability and safety reasons. The panels will have 6.0m long by 4.0m wide strike pillars with 2m holings between pillars, with the ASG maintained approximately 3m ahead of the advancing stope face.

Maroelabult Section Maroelabult is accessed by two 6m x 2m declines that are spaced 10m apart going down skin to skin at approximately 9°. The stoping method used at Maroelabult is conventional breast mining. Advance strike gullies spaced at 21.5m are 1.5m wide and 2.8m deep and will be developed on reef. The panel width will be maintained below 22.5m for stability and safety reasons. The panels will have 6.0m long by 4.0m wide strike pillars with 2m holings between pillars, with the ASG maintained approximately 3m ahead of the
advancing stope face.

Crocette Utilizes two trackless footwall declines as the primary access with the drives going down at 9°and 34⁰ below strike. The stoping method that will be used at Crocette is conventional breast mining. Advance strike gullies spaced at 21.5m are 1.5m wide and 2.8m deep and will be developed on reef. The panel width will be maintained below 22.5m for stability and safety reasons. The panels will have 6.0m long by 4.0m wide

The plant is designed to treat 170,000t per month of UG2 ore. The ore is conveyed to the plant from underground and surface sources and is crushed in a three stage crushing circuit before feeding two 2,500 crushed ore silos. The milling and flotation circuit has two independent streams designed to treat 85,000t per month each. Each of the circuits is MF2 configuration. The primary mills are in closed circuit with 650 micron screens and hydro-cyclones. Tails from the primary flotation circuit as well as the tails from secondary cleaners are pumped to a spiral plant for the upgrading and the removal of chrome concentrate. Secondary regrind mills which further reduce the product size to a grind to liberate the sulphides containing PGMs and other valuable metals. The milled slurry then goes through a bank of rougher cells which recovery the PGMs and base metals, the tails report to scavenger cells and the concentrates report to cleaner cells. The final concentrate is settled and dispatched to Impala‟s smelter for final smelting and refining. High grade is transported by tanker while low grade is filtered and transported by road in concentrate bins. The concentrate contains 150 to 200 g/t of PGMs and between 1.5 and 3.0% Cr2O3 and is treated under the terms and conditions set out in the concentrate take-off agreement with IRSL.

In September 2017 Sound Mining released the technical report for Barplats for the Zandfontein Tailings retreatment project. Although at the time the mine is still under care and maintenance, this project was initiated to recover chrome from the Zandfontein Tailings. Because the mine is on care and maintenance a revised Mining Work Programme (MWP) and Social and Labour Plan (SLP) was required by the Department of Mineral Resources. Previously there was recovery from the tailings and a tailings retreatment plant was commissioned in 2007, and construction of the existing Chrome Recovery Plant (CRP) was completed in 2008. The TSF is calculated to comprise a physical volume of just over 8,365,000 m3 of tailings material or about 13.68 Mt (dry). A total of 6.42 Mt is planned to be moved both mechanically and hydraulically to feed 240 ktpm to a modified and upgraded CRP. A yield of around 15% is anticipated, which translates to a re-deposition rate of about 208 ktpm. These tailings will be replaced into new paddocks on the same footprint of the TSF to be mined.