- Tharisa’s Karo unit signs a five-year offtake deal with Valterra Platinum.
- Valterra, the world’s largest PGM refiner, smelts at its nearby Unki mine.
- Deal follows Karo’s 25-year special mining lease, signed August 24.
- First production from Karo is still targeted for 2027.
By ZiMining/Reuters
THARISA Plc’s Zimbabwe unit has agreed to sell platinum concentrate to Valterra Platinum, the company said on Thursday, securing a buyer for its Karo project ahead of first production expected next year.
Reuters reported the offtake contract runs for an initial term of five years. Tharisa, an integrated platinum group metal (PGM) and chrome producer operating in South Africa, is developing the Karo platinum project in Zimbabwe, where it expects to produce 226,000 ounces of PGMs annually in its first phase.
“Securing a concentrate purchase agreement with a partner of Valterra’s standing … is a significant milestone for Karo Platinum, providing offtake certainty as we advance the project towards first production,” Tharisa CEO Phoevos Pouroulis said, according to Reuters.
Valterra, the world’s largest PGM refiner, runs a smelter at its Unki mine in Zimbabwe, about 200 km from Karo. Valterra’s own disclosures show Unki sits in Shurugwi, in the country’s Midlands Province, on the Great Dyke, and holds estimated reserves of around 34 million ounces of platinum, producing roughly 64,000 ounces a year.
The Unki smelter, built to process concentrate locally rather than export it raw, has operated since 2018 as part of what the company has described as answering Zimbabwe’s beneficiation push.
Zimbabwe’s other PGM producers, including Impala Platinum and Sibanye Stillwater, mostly smelt concentrates locally and ship matte to South African refineries for final processing into metals used mainly in autocatalysts, Reuters noted.
The offtake deal follows closely on the heels of another milestone for Karo: as ZiMining reported earlier this week, Tharisa signed a 25-year special mining lease for the project with the Zimbabwean government on August 24. Reuters described that agreement as a key step in advancing the project toward production.
Together, the two announcements, a secured lease and now a secured buyer, mark a project moving in quick succession from paperwork to production readiness, with first output from Karo still targeted for 2027.
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