Sibanye resumes underground production at Stillwater West after shaft repairs

Sibanye-Stillwater (JSE: SSW, NYSE: SBSW) has resumed production at its Stillwater West platinum group metals (PGM) mine in Montana after repairing the shaft infrastructure that was damaged during an incident in March.

On Monday, the South Africa-based miner announced it has recommissioned the vertical shaft at Stillwater West, allowing production from the deeper levels (below 50 level) of the mine to resume.

Production will build up over a two-week period and is expected to be at normalized levels by end of April 2023, Sibanye said in a statement.

According to the company, the suspension of production below 50 level during the remediation and build-up phase is expected to reduce production from the Stillwater West mine by approximately 30,000 ounces, equivalent to 7% of the group’s total PGM productions last year.

As previously announced, access to the upper levels (above 50 level) of the Stillwater West mine and the Stillwater East mine (through the east portal) were not affected by the incident. As such, production from these areas, as well as from the East Boulder mine, continued during the remediation.

In 2022, Sibanye’s US PGM production declined 26% to 421,133 ounces after a seven-week work stoppage caused by floods in Montana. Production from its southern African operations totalled 1.73 million PGM ounces.

The company has warned that an electricity crisis in South Africa, the world’s top PGM producing nation, could cut its output by as much as 15% this year.