Zimbabwe's Zimplats Leases Mining Land to Government, Ending Dispute

FILE - A worker drives a vehicle at Zimplats' Ngwarati Mine in Mhondoro-Ngezi May 30, 2014.

HARARE (Reuters) - Impala Platinum’s Zimbabwean subsidiary said on Wednesday that it had agreed to lease nearly half of its mining land to the government and that in turn it had received two mining leases valid for the life of its operations.
The southern African nation had since 2013, under former president Robert Mugabe, unsuccessfully tried to seize the land from Zimplats, the country’s biggest platinum miner.
Zimplats Holdings Limited produces platinum group metals (PGMs) and associated metals, which include nickel, gold, copper, cobalt and silver mined from the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe. Its segments include Platinum, Palladium, Gold, Rhodium, Nickel, Ruthenium, Iridium, Silver, Copper and Cobalt. The Company, through its subsidiary Zimbabwe Platinum Mines (Private) Limited, a producer of PGMs, is engaged in exploiting the ore bodies located on the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe.
It operates approximately four underground mines and an open pit mine, which supply ore to three concentrator modules. The Company sells white matte (a concentrate of metals), which consists of platinum, palladium, rhodium, gold and nickel.