Precious Metals '04, which will be held in Cape Town in November, will deal with all aspects of the processing of gold, silver and PGM ores.

South African platinum giant Impala Platinum Limited (Implats) is to sponsor this event, which is expected to attract a large international audience.

Implats has its primary operations concentrated on the Impala lease area on the western limb of the world-renowned Bushveld Complex, near the town of Rustenburg in South Africa's North West Province. Impala, which has over 30 years experience in mining these deposits, has built up a vast body of knowledge and expertise in mining the Bushveld Complex. The group's concentrating and smelting operations, Mineral Processes (Minpro), are also located in the Impala lease area while the precious and base metals refineries are located in Springs, just outside Johannesburg in the province of Gauteng.

In the past decade, Impala has transformed itself from one of the highest to one of the lowest cost primary platinum group metals (PGM) producers in the world. In the process it has achieved the best productivity statistics of all South African hard rock mining operations.

Full details of Precious Metals '04 can be found at www.min-eng.com/preciousmetals04.