Zimbabwe, Russia finalise deal for R55bn platinum mine




Russian President Putin and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa
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Zimbabwe has signed an agreement with Russia to build a new platinum mine in the southern African country, finalising a deal that’s stalled since 2014.
A deal to develop a new platinum-group metals mine on a prospect held by Great Dyke Investment, a company jointly owned by a Russian state-controlled company and Zimbabwe’s government has been sealed, Polite Kambaruma, the nation’s deputy mines minister said.The deal hadn’t progressed since an initial agreement in 2014, Kambaruma said, declining to disclose the shareholding structure. He said the mine and associated infrastructure will cost $4 billion (around R55bn at current rates).

“Two weeks ago we finalised the agreement and the Russians are ready to come on the ground,” Kambaruma said in an interview on the sidelines of a conference in Johannesburg.

The mine would be built on one of the largest platinum mining concessions in the country. Egypt-based Afreximbank may raise $2bn (around R27bn) to finance building the mine and a smelter at the project, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported last year.

Source: Bloomber