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Andile Tshuma, Chronicle Reporter

GOVERNMENT has finalised an agreement with Russia to build a new platinum mine under an estimated $4 billion investment that is expected to turn the tide on platinum mining in the country. Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development, Polite Kambamura, in a recent interview with Bloomberg in South Africa, said the agreement with the Russians was signed two weeks ago. 

“Two weeks ago we finalised the agreement and the Russians are ready to come on the ground,” said the Deputy Minister. 

According to recent reports, the mine would be built on one of the largest platinum mining concessions in the country. Egypt-based Afreximbank may raise $2 billion to finance building the mine and a smelter at the project. The deputy minister was quoted saying the deal was to develop a new platinum-group metals mine on a prospect held by Great Dyke Investments, a company jointly owned by a Russian state-controlled company and Zimbabwe’s government.

Zimbabwean firm, Pen East Investments and Russia’s JCS Afronet commissioned the multi-billion dollar platinum mining project in 2015, the biggest joint venture deal Government has ever entered with a foreign investor since independence.