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Positive first-quarter mine operating income has heartened South African platinum group metals (PGM) and chrome mining company Eastplats, which reported on Friday, May 15 that it will continue to focus on operational efficiencies to improve its PGM and chrome production.

The Canada-based company, which has a primary listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange and a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, reported a $5.4-million-higher first-quarter mine operating income from its Crocodile River mine PGMs and chrome operations on the western limb of South Africa's Bushveld Complex.

Six-element PGM production of 4 751 oz in the three months to March 31 was up on the 3 175 oz in the corresponding period of last year. The production of chrome concentrate was also well up at 16 757 t compared with last year's first-quarter output of 9 761 t.

Overall, first-quarter revenue fell by 6.8% to $13.8-million while first-quarter gross margin was 4.8% compared with the negative -31.6% in the first quarter of last year.

This was the result of higher PGM sales as well as the completion of shifting from tailings feed to run-of-mine (RoM) upper group two (UG2) ore from the Zandfontein underground section of the Crocodile River mine.

"We had a challenging first quarter as monthly RoM processing tonnages at Crocodile River mine were lower than targeted. That said, we're encouraged by the positive mine operating income and continue to focus on operational efficiencies to improve PGM and chrome production," Eastplats CEO and president Wanjin Yang stated in a media release to Mining Weekly.

Most of Eastplats' revenue – 81% for first quarter of 2026 – is from PGM concentrate sales to Impala Platinum under offtake agreements, as production from the Crocodile River mine ramps up.

Net loss attributable to equity shareholders narrowed to $4.1-million compared with $6.9-million in the first quarter of last year.

SOUTH AFRICAN PRODUCTION

Minerals Council South Africa reported on May 15 that in the month of March, overall South African production of PGMs was 10.5% higher than in March 2025, supported by operational stability and demand recovery.

In addition, PGMs were the biggest contributors to South Africa's overall mineral sales of R242-billion in the first three months of 2026.

Price developments in the month of March were considerable, with the rhodium price at a 105.7%-higher $11 285/oz, platinum at a 109.6%-higher $2 054/oz, and palladium at a 62.4%-higher $1 556/oz.

"The sharp increase in mineral sales earnings highlights the sector's potential to catalyse inclusive growth in South Africa. With supportive policy and regulatory frameworks, the industry could achieve even greater outcomes," Minerals Council South Africa noted in a release to Mining Weekly.

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

Critical and precious metals project developer and investor Metals One has signed an agreement with materials liberation company DISA Technologies to seek to evaluate and, if successful, treat historically abandoned uranium mine waste dumps and recover saleable uranium and other critical mineral concentrates at Metals One's 100%-owned Uravan Belt uranium/vanadium project, in Colorado, in the US.

The Uravan project was acquired by Metals One in July 2025.

It comprises 59 unpatented mining claims situated near the historic Buckhorn mine within the Uravan Mineral Belt, a district responsible for more than 60-million pounds of uranium and 330-million pounds of vanadium production during the twentieth century.

Within the Uravan project, there are eight separate abandoned uranium mine waste dumps suitable for potential recovery.

In September 2025, Metals One announced it had returned grades of up to 41 768 ppm uranium (4.17%) from historic waste material from rock chip sample assays.

This agreement expands on an existing relationship with DISA.

Under the terms of the latest agreement, DISA will now advance exploration work.

Metals One will be paid a gross revenue share of saleable uranium and other critical mineral concentrates recovered from waste dumps at the Uravan project through the deployment of DISA's modular mobile plants using the patented high-pressure slurry ablation (HPSA) system.

Metals One is not required to contribute any capital or operational expenditure.

Metals One will also receive a percentage of gross product sale revenue stream, minus certain post-treatment allowable costs – a sliding scale with a base rate of 2.5%, through to 4% in certain metals pricing environments.

DISA will be the operator of the Uravan project and pay all associated costs of permitting, evaluation, treatment and ongoing remediation.

The HPSA process treats surface dumps of previously partially mined and aggregated material.

In September 2025, DISA became the first company to receive a service providers licence from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, providing a regulatory licence for it to remediate abandoned uranium mine waste.

In addition to extracting valuable uranium and critical minerals, the process delivers improvements to the local environment and watersheds by removing on average 90% of the uranium and radium-226 content from the waste, as evidenced by a treatability study DISA completed with the US Environmental Protection Agency, Metals One points out.

It also highlights strong US government support for the domestic recovery of uranium and critical minerals from legacy mine waste.

DISA will now undertake a characterisation programme with a combination of assay and gamma probes to determine the likely quantities of uranium and other recoverable minerals present in the waste piles.

The application and completion of all requisite permits needed to start the treatment of waste and recovery of payable concentrates using HPSA technology will also be advanced.

"The Uravan project sits within one of the US's most prolifically mined uranium belts. Assays from Metals One's initial exploration activities last year indicate the exceptional grades historically mined from within the project, with multiple samples containing uranium and vanadium at ore-grade levels.

"It follows that there is a significant opportunity to apply DISA's breakthrough process to remediate abandoned uranium mine waste from the identified sites and recover valuable uranium and critical minerals whilst improving the environmental legacy from historical mining," says Metals One MD Daniel Maling.

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

Sustainable technologies group Johnson Matthey notes in its latest 'PGM Market Report' that platinum demand will exceed supply again this year on the back of firm industrial use and constrained mine supply, while ruthenium and iridium are also expected to be in deficit amid rising demand from the data storage and energy transition sectors.

Palladium and rhodium are, however, likely to record small surpluses in supply this year.

The report states that all the platinum group metals (PGMs) recorded supply deficits this year, with the three autocatalyst PGMs – platinum, palladium and rhodium – recording deficits on the back of weak supply.

"Autocatalyst recycling has been slow to recover from a downturn during 2023/24, while primary supply from South Africa and North America has been eroded by rationalisation and mine closures," Johnson Matthey points out.

At the same time, it adds, industrial demand has been robust, especially in the petrochemicals and electronics sectors, while the production of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles remained resilient, although there was some metal substitution, thrifting and model mix impacts.

Platinum recorded a deficit of 951 000 oz in 2025, a widening on the deficit of 559 000 oz recorded in 2024. The deficit for this year is estimated at 317 000 oz.

Palladium recorded a deficit of 416 000 oz for 2025, compared with a deficit of 218 000 oz the year before. It is estimated to move into a surplus of 214 000 oz this year.

Rhodium recorded a deficit of 50 000 oz in 2025, compared with a deficit of 9 000 oz in 2024, but is expected to move into a surplus of 15 000 oz this year.

Johnson Matthey states that the near-term outlook for PGM demand is uncertain owing to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, unresolved questions over US trade policy and increasing resource nationalism.

"Our forecast shows demand for all the PGMs except iridium contracting in 2026. Lower global output of ICE vehicles will hit automotive PGM use, while jewellery and investment demand could also weaken this year. Ruthenium chemicals demand will fall, but industrial PGM consumption will otherwise be broadly stable, albeit with some downside risk due to disruption to petrochemical shipments.

"Mine production is expected to drop, especially in Russia, but double-digit growth in autocatalyst recycling will boost secondary supplies," it notes.

Johnson Matthey says it expects modest decline in South Africa's PGM supplies for this year, on the back of a smaller benefit from the release of work-in-progress than in the prior two years, as well as a limited contraction in underlying mine production volumes.

PGM supplies from Russia are expected to contract sharply this year, as Norilsk Nickel's output is likely to be lower owing to changes in the mining mix at its operations.

Further, platinum supplies from North America are expected to increase slightly, but palladium supply is likely to fall as Canada's Lac dee Iles mine nears the end of its life.

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

The ownership transition of Cementation Africa is enabling this underground mining contracting business to advance at a time of capital investment uptick in mining.

Transitioning outside of the Murray & Roberts group and beyond the business rescue process of Murray & Roberts Limited has given Cementation Africa the opportunity to shake off negative connotations and to re-establish itself as an underground contract miner.

"This ownership transition is really important for us as a business. It really enables us to focus on what we do, and that is mining," Cementation Africa MD Japie du Plessis outlined to Mining Weekly during an interview in which Mark Salmon participated as the Head of Special Situations Fund at Differential Capital, which is Cementation's new shareholder. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

In navigating its way out of business rescue with Differential Capital, Cementation Africa has managed to retain all assets as well as skills.

"A very important role we play when we provide capital is helping to retain vital skills for the benefit of all stakeholders," said Salmon, who expressed excitement about the future for the company, which is going all out to improve its African footprint and collaborating with its American sister company.

Branding has been aligned across jurisdictions and steps are being taken to leverage on common engineering design strengths across time zones.

In South Africa, Cementation Africa has a five-year contract for the execution of the underground mining development and construction works at Tharisa Minerals chrome and platinum group metals mine.

In Zambia, it has reopened its office and is executing work at Mopani copper mine.

In Ghana, it has registered a fully compliant local business.

In raise boring, it is intent on expanding.

On the modernisation front, it is partnering with leading technology providers.

"Modern technology is really improving the efficiencies, improving safety and we're constantly looking to identify where technology can assist us to improve our efficiencies, improve our safety performance and we'll never stop that process. We'll forever constantly look to evolve as technology evolves and we're already setting ourselves a challenge to find projects and operations where we can challenge ourselves to get to autonomous operations and even remote operations. We're partnering with leading tech companies, and hoping, in the not-so-distant future, to share a little bit more about that," du Plessis revealed.

NEW SHAREHOLDER

The strategic focus of Differential Capital, an investment company, has been on using big data and AI within the financial services industry.

About two years ago, it identified a distinct opportunity in the mining contracting space, on the back of low capital investment in mining sector, "and that meant that institutions or companies that provided those services, were likely to have exceptionally good prospects," Salmon explained.

Against that background, Differential Capital took the opportunity to acquire all the Cementation assets out of the business rescue process and to assist the African and American Cementation businesses. "They've done an amazing job in navigating that period and we're really excited about the future. You've already started to see capital investment announcements pick up over the last couple of months, and you're starting to see order books become relatively robust," Salmon pointed out.

Mining Weekly: What is on offer from your in-house engineering design office?

du Plessis: We do anything from prefeasibility, feasibility studies all the way through to detail design work, and our most recent sizable design package was on Ivanplats' Platreef, where we have transitioned a ventilation shaft in...

This audio is brought to you by Endress and Hauser, a global leader in process and laboratory measurement technology, offering a broad portfolio of instruments, solutions and services for industrial process measurement and automation.

The symbol U and the atomic number 92 are once again among the energy elements being looked at with greater intensity amid global fossil fuel supply disruption and growing demand for triuranium octoxide, or U3O8, commonly known as "yellow cake".

Coupled to the current disruption is also the aspiration for a decarbonised energy alternative, which the naturally occurring radioactive uranium can provide.

While uranium's primary use is in nuclear power plants and South Africa mines uranium as a gold-mining byproduct, South Africa's State-owned Koeberg nuclear power station sources its uranium from international rather than local suppliers.

Uranium is not traded in any significant volume on global commodity exchanges. Contracted selling prices are determined by pricing mechanisms that reference common industry published prices for spot and term uranium contracts and may be subject to escalating floor prices and ceiling prices. These include base-escalated, fixed-price, and market-related pricing mechanisms.

Following the 1973 oil crisis, France initiated a large State-driven pivot toward nuclear energy to secure energy independence and McKinsey & Company reports now that the US may need up to 300 gigawatts (GW) of new nuclear capacity by 2050 to keep up with the electricity demand from AI and hyperscale data centres. The US currently has a capacity of 97 GW.

McKinsey also reports that US uranium mining capacity has declined dramatically from its peak of 20 000 t of U3O8 a year in 1980. In fact, in 2023, 90% of the uranium purchased by US reactor operators came from Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Canada and Australia. While the US has the world's greatest uranium demand, less than 1% is sourced from domestic mines.

The Southern African region's insight into uranium comes largely from Namibia in general and Paladin Energy in particular, which on Wednesday, May 13, published an interim financial report recording a gross profit of $34.4-million for the nine months to March 31.

WTS Energy positions Namibia after Kazakhstan and Canada as the world's third-largest extractor of uranium. It calculates that Kazakhstan provides 39% of global uranium, Canada 24%, and Namibia 12%, while Australia, Russia, Uzbekistan, Niger, and China also play uranium mining roles.

During the three months to March 31, Paladin reported that ramp-up of production at its Langer Heinrich mine continued, when the mine produced 1.29-million pounds of U3O8 at an average recovery rate of 92%, driven by strong processing plant performance. The completion of its ramp-up is expected by the end of the 2026 financial year.

The average price realised for 1.03-million pounds of U3O8 was $68.3/lb and the cost of production for the quarter was $40.3/lb.

The opencast Langer Heinrich, located in the Erongo region, has estimated reserves, Wikipedia reports, of 57 000 t of 0.055% uranium ore.

Also in Namibia, outside of the Paladin group, are the Rössing uranium mine, which turns 50 this year and is extending mine life to at least 2036, as well as the Husab uranium mine, formerly known as Rössing South.

Although the western central Damara Belt hosts Namibia's best-known Rössing, Langer Heinrich and Valencia deposits, uranium has also been found in the northern Engo Valley and in the southern Namaqua Belt.

In Canada, Paladin has the Patterson Lake South project in Saskatchewan and the Michelin project in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In Australia, it has uranium exploration assets in Queensland and Western Australia.