JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Johannesburg- and Sydney-listed platinum group metals (PGMs) development company Southern Palladium has submitted a mining right application for its 70%-owned Bengwenyama PGMs project, on the eastern limb of South Africa’s Bushveld Complex, which contains more than 70% of the world’s known PGM resources.

“This application marks our transition from a pure exploration to a development-focused company,” Southern Palladium MD Johan Odendaal stated in a Johannesburg Stock Exchange news service announcement.

The project is described as being particularly rich in palladium and rhodium. Previous exploration efforts have yielded a compliant inferred mineral resource of 25.12-million ounces within two ore horizons — the upper group two chromitite reef horizon and Merensky reef horizon.

The exploration tenement is 100% held by Miracle Upon Miracle Investments, in which the company holds a 70% interest. The total application area over the two farms measures 5 280 ha.

Primary focus is on delivering a prefeasibility study (PFS), as well as overseeing the completion of the diamond drill programme initiated more than a year ago, along with several other concurrent technical studies.

The social and environmental phases of permitting will commence on acceptance by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. These studies will evaluate the potential impacts of proposed operational activities.

Resource modelling incorporating results of the ongoing drill programme has started. A second interim resource update on the existing 25.11-million ounces of compliant resource is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year, Mining Weekly can report.

In addition to PGMs, the mining right application is for gold, copper, chrome, cobalt, silver and nickel over the full extent of the farms Nooitverwacht 324 KT and Eerstegeluk 327 KT, both of which are in Limpopo.

Expected to conclude this month is a geotechnical study critical for the detailed mine designs and scoping PFS planning.

Due in the fourth quarter is metallurgical test work, encompassing flotation efficiency tests and determinations of the bond ball mill work index.

The eastern side of the Eerstegeluk farm is receiving special drilling focus with the objective of converting inferred resources to measured resources and indicated resources, with a second interim resource update planned in quarter four.

Completion of the second interim resource update should allow the finalisation of an updated project scoping study in the first quarter of 2024, with work on the PFS expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2024.