Johannesburg - Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) on Tuesday announced that it had safely stopped furnace number one at Waterval smelter in Rustenburg.
This comes after a leak of molten furnace matte was detected from the furnace's hearth on Saturday.
“A preliminary assessment of the damage to the furnace has shown that a rebuild of the furnace should be brought forward, as the most prudent means of mitigating future potential operational risks,” Amplats said in a statement.
“While the extent of the damage to the furnace has yet to be fully quantified, early indications are that the rebuild, and associated production ramp-up, is likely to take approximately three to four months to complete.”
Amplats said all emergency procedures, including actions to safeguard all site personnel, were successfully implemented and no one was injured. In an unrelated incident, a worker was killed after he was injured in “an explosion related incident” at Amplat's Rustenburg East mine last month.
Read also: Amplats mine shut down
Amplats said the remaining smelters were operating at full capacity and consequently, smelting losses associated with this unplanned shutdown, will not be recovered this year.
This furnace at Waterval smelter represents approximately 20 percent of the Amplat's smelting capacity.
As a result, Amplats said platinum production for the 2016 financial year is expected to be impacted by between 70 000 and 100 000 platinum ounces. “There will be a build-up of concentrate stocks during the rebuild which will be released as refined metal in the future,” Amplats said.
“The capital expenditure for the unplanned rebuild will be circa R125 million, resulting in total capital expenditure for the year to be at the upper end of our guided range of between R3.5 billion to R4 billion
.” Amplats also said its mining and concentrating activities were unaffected, therefore not impacting the previously guided range of produced metal in concentrate of 2.3 million to 2.4 million platinum ounces.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY