Eastern Platinum (Eastplats), an Africa-focused mining company, has terminated a project framework agreement between its subsidiary Barplats Mines and Advanced Beneficiation Technologies, a South African technology supplier, to construct a modular plant to process platinum group metals (PGM).

The announcement relates to a previous deal struck on 22 July 2020 where the parties agreed to develop and build the PGM processing plant from tailings re-deposited from the retreatment project at a designated area of the Zandfontein dam near the Crocodile River Mine.

The project included several milestones required under the Agreement to complete and establish the Circuit H Project, including a joint venture agreement between Barplats and ABT, financing agreements and off-take agreements for the project.

None of these agreements were concluded before the termination of the Agreement, according to Eastplats.

The company said it would continue to focus its efforts on restarting the Zandfontein underground operations at the mine and will assess its ability to recover PGMs from the tailings in due course.