News

January 29, 2008

More Power to Ridge Mining! Or Not…

By Alastair Ford

Every man and his dog is making an announcement about the power situation in South Africa at the moment, and Ridge Mining is no exception. Ahead of an analyst visit timed to co-incide with Indaba the company has released an update on the feasibility study at its Sheba’s Ridge nickel platinum property on the Bushveld. SRK is currently looking over Ridge’s plans and estimates for development there, and as things stand there’s not much new to report, other than that the resource has been updated and re-jigged and now, at 764m tonnes at 0.19% nickel, 0.07 per cent copper and just over 0.2 grammes per tonne platinum, contains slightly less tonnage and slightly higher grade. That’s bullet point one of Ridge’s news release. The second bullet point explains how the company is now “evaluating alternative energy outlets” for Sheba’s Ridge in the wake of Eskom’s meltdown.

Ridge commercial director Francis Johnstone is fairly candid about what it all means for the company. “It probably knocks us back a year or so”, he says, on the basis that Eskom reckons it’ll have normal power supplies available again in 2013, and Sheba’s Ridge was previously slated for first production in 2012. In between now and then, there’s the feasibility study to sign off on, funding to put in place and a mine to be built before the company can begin to draw down on the power that it...