Sibanye Stillwater Limited (Sibanye-Stillwater) is a multinational mining and metals processing company with a diverse portfolio of operations, projects and investments across five continents.
The company is also one of the foremost global recyclers of PGM autocatalysts and has interests in leading mine tailings retreatment operations. Sibanye-Stillwater is one of the world's largest primary producers of platinum, palladium, and rhodium and is a top tier gold producer. It also produces and refi...
Sibanye Stillwater Limited (Sibanye-Stillwater) is a multinational mining and metals processing company with a diverse portfolio of operations, projects and investments across five continents.
The company is also one of the foremost global recyclers of PGM autocatalysts and has interests in leading mine tailings retreatment operations. Sibanye-Stillwater is one of the world's largest primary producers of platinum, palladium, and rhodium and is a top tier gold producer. It also produces and refines iridium and ruthenium, nickel, chrome, copper and cobalt. The company has recently begun to diversify its asset portfolio into battery metals mining and processing and increase its presence in the circular economy by growing its recycling and tailings reprocessing exposure globally. Domiciled in South Africa, Sibanye-Stillwater owns and operates a portfolio of high-quality operations and projects, which are grouped into four regions, namely, Southern Africa (SA region), Americas, Europe and Australia.
Operations
Americas
PGMs
Sibanye-Stillwater wholly owns and operates PGM mining and processing operations and mining claims located in Montana, the United States of America (U.S.). These wholly-owned assets include the Stillwater mine (inclusive of the Stillwater East mine), the East Boulder mine, two concentrator plants, and the surrounding PGM mining claims located near the town of Nye. In addition, the company owns and operates a metallurgical smelter and base metals refinery complex situated in the town of Columbus, Montana, which also serves as the base for the company's PGM recycling business, which recovers PGMs from recycled catalytic converters (together known as the U.S. PGM operations).
The company has an 13.90% equity holding in Generation Mining, the owners and operators of the Marathon PGM project in Canada. In addition, the company has a 14.35% equity holding in Aldebaran Resources Inc. (Aldebaran) which owns 60% (legal interest) in Peregrine Metals Limited (Peregrine) that owns the Altar project. The company has a 40% legal interest in Peregrine with Aldebaran, in terms of an earn-in arrangement, having the right to acquire a further 20% in Peregrine.
Battery Metals
The company holds a 6.91% interest in ioneer Limited, the owner and future operator of the Rhyolite Ridge lithium and boron project in Nevada, with an option to enter into a 50:50 JV on the project, subject to the fulfilment of certain conditions.
The project aims to be the first new lithium producer in the USA in over 50 years and has entered final permitting phase, with the final record of decision (ROD) expected in Q3 2024. The company also holds a 40% non-managed effective legal interest in the Altar copper-gold porphyry exploration project in Argentina.
Southern Africa
PGMs
The SA PGM operations consist of three managed PGM producing underground operations (Marikana, Rustenburg and Kroondal), as well as an open pit operation situated at Kroondal. In addition, the PGM segment has a 50% interest in Mimosa Investments Limited (Mimosa), a nonmanaged, underground operation in Zimbabwe.
The Rustenburg (74% effective legal interest) and Kroondal (100% attributable) operations produce concentrate which is processed in terms of a toll-treatment (Rustenburg) and a purchase of concentrate (PoC) (Kroondal) agreement with Rustenburg Platinum Mines Limited, a division of Anglo American Platinum Limited.
The Marikana operations (80.64% effective legal interest) processes its own concentrate via a metallurgical smelter and base metals refinery situated at the operations, and a precious metals refinery complex located in Brakpan, to the east of Johannesburg.
Apart from the primary mining operations, the following significant tailings retreatment operations exist:
the Platinum Mile tailings retreatment facility (100% owned and managed) recovers PGMs from historic Rustenburg TSFs, as well as live tailings streams of the Rustenburg (Waterval and Retrofit) concentrator plants;
the Western Limb tailings retreatment (WLTR) plant recovers PGMs from historic TSFs at the Rustenburg operation;
the Bulk tailings retreatment (BTT) facility recovers chrome and PGMs from the ETD1 Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) at the Marikana operation;
the Eastern Tailings Treatment Plant (ETTP) facility recovers chrome and PGMs from live tailings material from the EPL concentrator at the Marikana operations; and
at the Rustenburg, Kroondal and Marikana operations, a chrome concentrate is recovered as a by-product from all the UG2 concentrator tailings streams.
PGM Projects
The Akanani exploration project (80.13% effective legal interest) is an advanced staged exploration asset on the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) near the town of Mokopane. The Limpopo exploration project, located approximately 50km southeast of Mokopane, consists of the care and maintenance Baobab operation (80.64% effective legal interest), the Dwaalkop mining right (50:50 JV area with Northam, 40.32% effective legal interest), and the Doornvlei mining right (80.64% effective legal interest).
The Blue Ridge Platinum exploration project, a 50% joint venture (JV) with Imbani Platinum Proprietary Limited, has been on care and maintenance since 2011.
Gold
The gold operations are made up of four managed, producing, underground and surface operations in South Africa, namely the Kloof (100% attributable), Driefontein (100% attributable) and Cooke (76% attributable) operations in the West Wits region, and Beatrix (100% attributable) operation in the Free State province. In addition, and in the support of its gold mining activities, Sibanye-Stillwater owns and manages six metallurgical processing facilities where gold-bearing ore is processed, and gold extracted.
The company also reports Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves on an attributable basis for DRDGOLD Limited (DRDGOLD) due to its 50.28% equity interest. DRDGOLD operates the Far West Gold Recoveries (FWGR) and the ERGO Gold Recoveries operations.
Gold Projects
Burnstone (100%) is a shallow developmental stage gold mine and processing operation in Mpumalanga Province. Wholly-owned and managed projects in study phase include Bloemhoek, De Bron Merriespruit, which form part of the Southern Free State (SOFS) exploration project.
Green Metals
Significant quantities of uranium are present in the historic TSFs of the Cooke operation, as well as the Beisa operation, a combined gold and uranium deposit at the Beatrix operation. These are considered exploration projects even though they occur within existing, operational mining right areas.
Europe
Battery Metals
The company owns (79.82% attributable) and operates the Keliber lithium project in Finland. During 2023, construction of the lithium-hydroxide refinery in Kokkola progressed, and the construction of the concentrator plant near Kaustinen commenced. Significant exploration activities are also ongoing at the extensive mineral title holdings.
Sandouville nickel refinery (Sandouville) in Le Havre, France is 100% owned by the Group. Sandouville mainly produces nickel metal and nickel salt products along with cobalt chloride and ferric chloride.
Australia
Green Metals
During 2023, the company acquired all of the outstanding shares in New Century Resources Limited (Century), (2022: 19.89% attributable), which operates the largest tailings retreatment operation in Australia, the Century zinc mine in Queensland. With the acquisition of Century, the group also obtained the option to acquire Mt Lyell (under care and maintenance) copper mine in Tasmania from Vedanta International. The option was duly exercised during November 2023, and is the subject of a feasibility study.
Metals and Production Summary
At the company's PGM operations in South Africa and Zimbabwe, the primary PGMs produced are platinum, palladium and rhodium, which together with gold, are referred to as 4E (3 PGM+Au). Production by ratio in 2023 was approximately 59% platinum (Pt), 30% palladium (Pd), 9% rhodium (Rh) and 2% gold (Au). During 2019, the Rustenburg operation changed from a PoC to a toll treatment (Toll) arrangement with Anglo American Platinum Limited (Anglo Plats). Under the Toll arrangement Sibanye-Stillwater uses Anglo Plats to smelt and refine concentrate from its Rustenburg operation and it retains ownership of the refined 4E metal produced. At the company's Marikana operation all concentrate is smelted to produce furnace matte and is further refined by the base metal and precious metal refineries. The final refined metals are produced as ingots or sponge and comprise platinum, palladium, rhodium, gold, iridium and ruthenium, which together are referred to as the 6E. Kroondal and Platinum Mile operations remain on a PoC agreement with Anglo Plats. The Marikana operation has agreements in place to purchase PGM concentrate from third parties. The processing of third-party material allows better utilisation of excess smelting and refining capacity.
The U.S. PGM operations primarily produce palladium 77% and platinum 23%, referred to as 2E (or 2PGM). Ore extraction at both mines takes place within the J-M Reef. A mill at each of the mining operations upgrades the mined production into a concentrated form. Sibanye-Stillwater operates a smelter and base metal refinery in Columbus, Montana which further upgrades the mined concentrates into a PGM-rich filter cake. The filter cake is then shipped to a third-party refiner for final refining before the PGMs are sold to third-parties.
The major sources of demand for PGMs are for use in autocatalysts and jewellery. Combined, these two areas accounted for around 59% (2022: 63%) of gross platinum demand in 2023. Gross autocatalyst demand alone accounted for 41% (2022: 41%) of platinum demand and for 84% (2022: 83%) of palladium demand in 2023. Sibanye-Stillwater sells PGM concentrate from its SA PGM operations locally and it also sells refined PGMs to customers in the USA, the U.K., EU and Japan.
Sibanye-Stillwater mines, extracts and processes gold-bearing ore at its SA gold operations to produce a beneficiated product, doré, which is then refined at Rand Refinery Proprietary Limited (Rand Refinery) into gold bars with a purity of at least 99.9% in accordance with the London Bullion Market Association's standards of Good Delivery. Sibanye-Stillwater holds a 44% interest in Rand Refinery, one of the largest refiners of gold globally, and the largest in Africa. Sibanye-Stillwater sells the refined gold to its customers who are international and local banks based in South Africa and a residual amount, below 5%, is sold to Rand Refinery. The main sources of demand for gold are as a store of value (such as central bank holdings), as an investment (exchange traded funds, bars and coins), jewellery and for various industrial purposes.
The majority of the nickel product at Sandouville was sold to a commodity trading company. The balance of the nickel product was sold to catalyst producers and plating product distributors.
Zinc concentrate was sold either through traders or directly to smelters in Australia, Korea and China for treatment into a refined 99.995% zinc metal, ready for sale to end users. The main sources of demand for zinc are for use as a coating to protect iron and steel from corrosion (galvanized metal), as alloying metal to make bronze and brass, as zinc-based die casting alloy and as rolled zinc.
In 2023, Sibanye-Stillwater delivered attributable PGM production of 1.77Moz (4E) and 0.43Moz (2E), and produced 25,212kg (0.81Moz) of gold, from its SA PGM, US PGM, SA gold operations respectively. SibanyeStillwater also produced 7,125 tonnes of Nickel (tNi) at Sandouville. Since its acquisition the Century zinc retreatment operation produced 92 kilotonnes (kt) of zinc in a 45.2% zinc concentrate for 76kt of payable zinc metal, in the period from the 1st of March through the 31st of December 2023.
Strategy
The company's involvement in the process to extend its copper portfolio into Zambia through the company's bid to acquire the Mopani operation was unsuccessful. The company remains interested in increasing the company's exposure to copper at an opportune time including through progressing feasibility studies for Mt Lyell.
The integration of New Century Resources, with majority ownership acquired on 22 February 2023 and 100% ownership on 15 May 2023, has progressed well with restructuring carried out to optimise regional and operational efficiencies. With Century zinc tailings retreatment operations operating well, the focus has moved onto exploring regional opportunities. In November the company exercised the option to acquire 100% of the Mt Lyell Copper Project (a previously operated copper mine) located in Tasmania, Australia. The Mt Lyell feasibility study (AACE Class 3 Estimate) is expected to be completed in the first half of 2024.
The company announced in November that the company had brought forward the completion of the transaction entered into between Rustenburg Platinum Mines Limited (RPM) a subsidiary of Anglo American Platinum Limited (AAP), and Sibanye-Stillwater's subsidiary, Sibanye Rustenburg Platinum Mines Limited (Rustenburg operation) which was originally announced on 31 January 2022, resulting in the Rustenburg operation acquiring RPM's 50% share in the Kroondal pool and share agreement (Kroondal PSA) and the company assuming full ownership of the low cost, mechanised Kroondal operation, effective 1 November 2023. RPM will be paid a deferred consideration (Deferred Consideration) calculated from 1 November 2023 until the full contracted 1,350,000 4Eoz (100% basis) have been delivered, which is expected to be during Q2 2024. The remaining contracted ounces (approximately 204,517 4E at 31 October 2023) will continue to be delivered under the terms of the current Kroondal operation PoC agreement. Upon delivery of the final remaining ounces, the PoC agreement will fall away and all PGM concentrate from the Kroondal operation will be subject to the terms of the current Rustenburg operation's sale and toll treatment agreement with RPM.
History
Sibanye Stillwater Limited was founded in 2013.