:: Everest Begins Commissioning

Aquarius Platinum’s third South African project, Everest, will begin commissioning this month ramping up to full production next year. This is according to DRA Project Manager, Roger Paton, who is responsible for overseeing the total EPCM Project, from Engineering design, through procurement, manufacturing, construction, and finally for operation by Minopex.

Everest, situated on the Eastern Limb of the Bushveld Complex, an area of intense PGM exploration, will exploit the UG2 reef. The plant was built two kilometres from the mine on a quartzitic intrusion. The plant design is based on the concentrator built for the Kroondal Pooling and Sharing project. It has a two mill-float (MF2) configuration and is designed for a throughput of 250 000 t/m. Final concentrate will run at around 200 g/t with platinum accounting for about 59% of the contained PGMs, palladium 30% and rhodium 10%.