Ridge Mining begins shaft sinking at Blue Ridge

johannesburg - junior platinum mining company ridge mining yesterday started shaft sinking at its r1.1 billion blue ridge project in the mpumalanga province.

first production from blue ridge of 125 000 ounces of platinum group metals (pgms) was expected to start in june 2008, with full output by the following august, terence wilkinson, ridge mining's chief executive, said in an interview yesterday.

there are about 20 junior mining companies exploring for platinum in the bushveld complex, where over three-quarters of the world's platinum is mined each year.

of the junior mining firms, ridge mining's blue ridge project will be the second mine to start construction. construction on eland platinum's elandsfontein platinum mine near brits in north west province was started late last year.

in december four south african banks agreed to loan ridge mining r610 million.

wilkinson said the plan was for the blue ridge mine to extend to a maximum of 700m and have a life of 18 years.

in addition to its first mine, the company is also looking to begin construction of its r5 billion sheba ridge project in 2009. sheba ridge is 20km southwest of the blue ridge project.



wilkinson said sheba ridge would be an open cast mine focused on producing nickel, with pgms as a byproduct. about 70 percent of nickel is used in the production of steel.

the feasibility study at shebaridge would be completed in 12 to 15 months.

wilkinson said a year ago the budget for the sheba ridge project was between $690 million (r4.9 billion) and $700 million but that inflation was likely to increase the cost.

the company is looking to build both a concentrator and a smelter at sheba ridge.

wilkinson said ridge mining had spoken to a new pgm metal processing company, independence platinum, as well as others, about processing their metal at sheba ridge.

the company also has an agreement with impala platinum to process the concentrate at sheba ridge.

at full production sheba ridge would need to process about 600 000 tons of pgm concentrate a year, he said.

construction of sheba ridge could start in 2009, with full production in 2010 or 2011.

wilkinson said ridge mining had placed its proposed jse listing on the back burner, as it now had enough funding available.