Palabora Mining Company Limited (founded August 1956) is a

publicly traded A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

mining company headquartered in Phalaborwa,

Limpopo Limpopo () is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a ...

province, South Africa. The company operates a single cluster of open-pit and underground mines producing mainly

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

as well as byproducts such as

precious metal Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high Value (economics), economic value. Precious metals, particularly the noble metals, are more corrosion resistant and less reactivity (chemistry), chemically reac ...

s from anode slimes, nickel sulfate,

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula . It is one of the iron oxide, oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetism, ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetization, magnetized to become a ...

, and vermiculite. Palabora also has processing facilities on site for the production of purified copper from mined copper ore, and a vermiculite recovery plant. Its final copper product has two forms namely, copper cathode and copper rod. In addition to its mining activities, Palabora maintains subsidiaries located in the United States, United Kingdom and

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

for the marketing of vermiculite.

History

Until 2013, Rio Tinto owned 57.7 per cent of Palabora and Anglo American owned 16.8 per cent. In September 2011, both companies announced that they planned to sell their stakes because its copper operation was "no longer of a sufficient scale." In December 2012, they reached a pre-sale agreement to sell their collective 74.5 per cent interest at R110 per share in a deal that valued Palabora at R5.31 billion. The purchasing consortium was led by a Chinese state-owned entity, the Hebei Iron and Steel Group (35 per cent of the consortium); it also comprised the state-owned South African Industrial Development Corporation (20 per cent), General Nice Development (25 per cent), and Tewoo Group (20 per cent).

Palabora mine

The Palabora mine was an open-pit operation until 2002, when the pit reached its final economic depth. Mining subsequently began in an underground mine which was constructed between 2001 and 2004. It is the only producing copper mine operating in South Africa, as well as the largest employer in Ba-Phalaborwa.

References

{{Anglo American plc 1956 establishments in South Africa Copper mining companies of South Africa Economy of Limpopo Non-renewable resource companies established in 1956 Open-pit mines Former Rio Tinto (corporation) subsidiaries Companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange