Pandora - South Africa
| Royalty: | 5% NPI |
|---|---|
| 2009 Revenue: | $1.696 M |
| Operator: | Lonmin PLC |
Franco-Nevada has a 5% NPI royalty on the 17,193 acre Pandora property in the western Bushveld area of South Africa. Anglo American Platinum Corporation (“Anglo Platinum”) and Lonmin Plc (“Lonmin”) formed a joint venture to develop the Pandora property in 2001. The property is owned by Anglo Platinum, Lonmin and their two Black Economic Empowerment partners. AMR payments of ZAR 100,000 (approximately $14,000) have been made on the royalty interest since 1994.
Then since 1996 and payments under the NPI commenced in 2005. In recent years ore has been sourced both from small open pit operations and by underground workings accessed from the Lonmin E3 shaft on the adjacent Eastern Platinum property. The open pit operations have now been depleted with ongoing mining focussed on the underground operations. In 2009, Lonmin reported 650,000 tonnes of ore sourced from the Pandora joint venture were milled, yielding 74,268 ounces of PGMs in concentrate. Reserves and resources at Pandora are prepared using the SAMREC classification system. Anglo Platinum reported its 42.5% attributable interest in the Pandora reserves and resources based on 4E at September 30, 2009 as follows: Ore reserves of 3.8 Mt with grade of 4.25 g/t containing 0.5Moz. Measured resources were 3.2 Mt at 4.82 g/t containing 0.5Moz. Indicated resources were 17.4 Mt at 4.47g/t containing 2.5Moz. Inferred resources were 42 Mt at 4.12 g/t containing 5.6Moz. Lonmin reported in their 2009 annual report that output from Pandora is expected to increase through 2013 and that they are at the final stages of a feasibility study on the underground extension of the joint venture, subject to approval by the joint venture partners, which is planned to come into production in 2013.