Amplats targeting 80% mechanised production but timeline extended to 2027 as price slumps

Platinum producer Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) is developing a range of mechanised technologies and is aiming to produce 80% of its platinum using mechanised mining methods by 2027. Amplats mining services head Frik Fourie says the company started implementing this strategy in 2011, when the intention was to attain this goal by 2023; however, owing to the “slump in platinum prices” over the past five years, the timeline was extended by four years. “We decided then (in 2011), as the largest platinum producer in the world, that, if we did not drive change in how the platinum industry operated, no one would.”