Zimplats operates three underground mines and a concentrator at Ngezi. The Selous Metallurgical Complex (SMC) located some 77 kilometers north of the mine comprises of a concentrator and smelter. The company also owns the Hartley Platinum Mine situated at Selous, which is under care and maintenance. Senator Monica Mutsvangwa told the Senate that the economic benefits of mineral resources need to be felt throughout the economy as well as by the communities that have the good luck to be in proximity to those exploited resources. “It is unpalatable that a village like Selous in Mashonaland West is in intermittent darkness when it is in proximity to the everlasting light of Zimplats platinum smelter,” Mutsvangwa said. “This smacks of total absence of corporate community responsibility to the local people who will later have to live with the environmental degradation that comes with negligent mining practices.”
Implats, the world’s second largest platinum producer, reported in its latest financial statement released in November that its Zimbabwe unit, Zimplats, increased platinum in matte output by 22 percent to 44,000 ounces, in line with its phase one expansion plans.
Further expansion should be completed in the second quarter of the 2011 financial year, raising annual production to 270,000 ounces of platinum by 2013.