The Zimbabwean unit of the world’s second-biggest platinum producer, Impala Platinum (Implats), will upgrade its smelter into a base-metals refinery for $100m in the next two years, an online news agency quoted a senior Zimplats official as saying on Friday.
The southern African country has the world’s second-largest known platinum reserves after South Africa. But mining companies such as Implats and Anglo American Platinum send the raw product to South Africa, where they already operate refineries, for processing.
President Robert Mugabe has given mining companies a two-year deadline to build a major precious metals refinery or risk a ban on raw exports.
The Source, an online business and financial news service, quoted Zimplats chief operating officer Stanley Segula as saying the mining company would upgrade its smelter Selous, west of Harare, into a base-metals refinery.