In early December, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) safely and successfully completed the rebuild of the Anglo Converter Plant (ACP) Phase A unit. The unit was ramping up and on track to be operating at full capacity by the end of the year.
“The ACP operations and projects teams have done an extraordinary job in safely completing the rebuild and recommissioning of the ACP Phase A unit,” Amplats CEO Natascha Viljoen said. “We were able to procure and deliver long lead-time items to site six months ahead of schedule, despite the impact of COVID-19 on supply chains, enabling us to bring forward the rebuild to the end of 2020, ahead of our initial expectations of Q2 2021.”
Viljoen added that first converter matte is now ready to be dispatched, allowing the company to re-establish the processing pipeline to finished metals. The company has also mitigated the impact of the interruption and managed contractual obligations during this period.
As a result, the company has upgraded refined production guidance for 2020 to between 2.6 million to 2.7 million PGM ounces (previously 2.5 million PGM ounces). Sales volumes have also been upgraded to about 2.8 million PGM ounces, as minor metal refined inventories have been drawn down. The release of the work-in-progress inventory built up in 2020 is expected to take up to 24 months.
