The precious metals producer said the expansion capital expenditure increased 106.6percent to R2billion in line with the schedule for the ramp up of Styldrift. Styldrift is one of the few expansion projects in South Africa’s platinum industry. The company said that last year capex was R2.16bn, a 91.8percent increase year-on-year.
René Hochreiter, an analyst at Noah Capital, said the expansion came as Royal Bafokeng was bringing Styldrift online at a cost of R4.7bn to become a 150000oz/year producer.
The company will need an additional R1.6bn in capex to take production at Styldrift up to 230000oz/year by the third quarter of 2020, he said.
The Styldrift project is ramping up months after Royal Bafokeng acquired Maseve Investment assets, including a concentrator from Platinum Group Metals for $78million (R929m) in total. “The Maseve acquisition makes it much easier for Royal Bafokeng to ramp up production at Styldrift,” said Hochreiter yesterday.