Paul Dunne, CEO of Northam Platinum. Picture: SUPPLIED
Paul Dunne. Picture: SUPPLIED

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A BRAND-new way of smelting platinum group metals will be used at the new R750m furnace Northam Platinum is installing to achieve its million-ounce platinum group metal target.

The furnace, designed by furnace specialists Tenova Pyromet who will also build it, will be uniquely flexible to treat concentrates coming from base metal-rich Merensky Reef ore as well as the chromite-rich UG2 reef.

Conventional furnaces treat one stream of concentrate or the other, with smelting technologies specially adapted to cope with each.

Northam, which has set itself the "aspirational" million-ounce target, can generate about 800,000oz of that out of its own mines and projects.

While there is space in the smelting complex near Thabazimbi, Limpopo, for third-party toll-treating opportunities, Northam has a R4bn war chest.

CEO Paul Dunne has said the company is hunting for further growth to meet its target.

Northam rejected the option of using the spare capacity available at the other three platinum companies with smelting complexes, preferring to be the master of its own destiny. It already has a 15MW smelter to treat a blend of ores from its Zondereinde mine.

Head of strategy at Northam Rene Rautenbach said savings made by not paying toll treatment fees to another company meant a new 20MW furnace would soon pay for itself once it is in production in two years.

Northam opted to buy a new furnace for R750m, of which R300m will be funded by refining partner Heraeus Deutschland.

Tenova Pyromet has designed a single smelter that can process both concentrate streams, said Andre Esterhuizen, Pyromet sales and marketing manager.

"The problem has been cracked," Mr Esterhuizen said.

"You can’t do this kind of project and do run of the mill stuff. You have to be creative, cutting edge," he said.

Furnace designs to accommodate either stream of platinum concentrate are normally very specific because of the tremendous heat variations in the placement of the electrodes in the furnace, either submerging them in the concentrate or keeping them slightly above the material to be smelted.

Each process presents separate technical challenges, but Tenova has come up with a design that allows tremendous flexibility in its furnace design that will also cope with the 2% or more of chromite in the UG2 concentrate from Booysendal mine.

Northam will supply the furnace from its new Booysendal mine and Booysendal South — the Everest mine and concentrator it bought from Aquarius Platinum last year — and it will mine Merensky Reef at Booysendal, all of which will be fed into the new furnace.

Tenova Pyromet has built furnaces for platinum and chrome companies in SA.

It has built or is busy with smelters in Iceland, Bosnia, Kazakhstan, South Korea and India. It had drawn on those experiences, some of which had been tricky, to evolve its furnace designs to come up with this solution for Northam, said Mr Esterhuizen.

"Every project we’ve done lately we can demonstrate there has been at least one fairly major new technology development that makes these projects viable," he said.