Victoria Falls Stock Exchange-listed platinum group metals (PGM) producer, Karo Mining Holdings, has clocked a fatality free million hours.
Rudairo Mapuranga
According to its audited abridged group results for the year ended September 30, 2023, Karo Mining Holdings, which employs over 800 people at its plant construction and pilot mining, stated that the project has been running for over a million hours without a fatality.
The project is being developed on the Great Dyke in Mhondoro-Ngezi, Mashonaland West Province.
“As of September 30, 2023, Karo Platinum employed 846 people on-site, of which 135 are Karo employees, with the balance being contractor employees. Most of these employees are drawn from the local community. The safety and health of all employees on the Karo Project site are of paramount importance. Karo is proud to report that by the end of September 2023, the project had run fatality-free for 1,022,744 hours,” Karo said in a statement.
According to the report, Karo raised US$36.8 million (excluding transaction costs) through a US dollar (“US$”) denominated structured debt instrument that was successfully listed on the VFEX. The funds raised were utilized in part to fund the development of Phase 1 of the Karo Platinum Project. In addition, the parent company supported the Karo Project with a further equity injection of US$65 million during the period, which continues to be utilized to support the project’s working capital requirements.
Karo commenced with bulk earthworks and the construction of civils in December 2022. The first concrete was poured in June 2023.
In the same month, open-pit pilot mining commenced to optimize the mining methods and produce ore to further test and refine metallurgical processing. At nameplate capacity, Karo will process approximately 2.5 Mtpa of ore and produce 190 kozpa of platinum group metals (“PGMs”) (6E basis). The PGMs’ price environment necessitated a review of the commissioning timeline. First ore in the mill (“FOIM”) is now planned for June 2025, while the project workstreams have been divided into smaller commitments to ensure continued development aligned with funding availability.