HARARE, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Major platinum miners in Zimbabwehave met a government deadline to agree and submit plans tobuild a major refinery in the country by the end of 2016, statemedia reported on Sunday.
President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government gave platinummines until Jan. 18 to submit proposals to build a preciousmetal refinery within two years or risk a ban on raw exports ofthe metal.
The world's two largest platinum producers, Anglo AmericanPlatinum and Impala Platinum Holdings (Implats), both have operations in Zimbabwe, which has thesecond-largest known platinum reserves after South Africa.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa wasquoted by the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper's websiteas saying he had received plans for the construction of a majorrefinery from Implats' local unit Zimplats, AngloAmerican's local unit Unki and Mimosa mine, which is jointlyowned by Zimplats and Aquarius Platinum Ltd.
"They have submitted to us their proposals and we areevaluating them," he said. "They have made a commitment thatthey will continue to support Zimbabwe and the setting up of aplatinum refinery is one of their aspirations."
Chidhakwa and spokespersons of the mining companies were notavailable for comment to Reuters on the report.
The Sunday Mail said the mining firms had also promised tolook at the possibility of setting up smaller processing plantsand processing ore at an existing small plant. The Mail alsosaid the companies raised questions over funding and securepower supplies.
It quoted Zimplats spokeswoman Busi Chindove as sayingrecently that the company had invested $30 million infeasibility studies that assessed the cost of a major refineryat about $2 billion.
Zimplats owns a base metal refinery that separates mineralslike nickel, chrome and copper from platinum metal groups butsays outdated technology makes it too expensive to run, so itsends platinum concentrate to South Africa for processing.
The Zimbabwe chamber of mines, which estimated 2012 outputof refined platinum at 350,000 ounces, about 6 percent of worldoutput, has said the country would need to raise platinum outputto 500,000 ounces a year to justify a refinery.
