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| Founded | 1956  |
|---|---|
Key people | Guangmin Wei (chief executive officer) |
 Open pit mine outside Phalaborwa | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Location | Phalaborwa |
| Province | Limpopo |
| Country |  South Africa |
| Production | |
| Products | Copper vermiculite anode slimes nickel sulfate sulfuric acid magnetite |
| History | |
| Opened | 1956 |
Palabora Mining Company Limited (founded August 1956) is apublicly traded mining company headquartered inPhalaborwa,Limpopo province, South Africa. The company operates a single cluster ofopen-pit and underground mines producing mainlycopper as well asbyproducts such asprecious metals fromanode slimes,nickel sulfate,sulfuric acid,magnetite, andvermiculite. Palabora also has processing facilities on site for the production of purified copper from mined copper ore, and a vermiculite recovery plant. Its final copper product has two forms namely, copper cathode and copper rod.[1]
In addition to its mining activities, Palabora maintains subsidiaries located in the United States, United Kingdom andSingapore for the marketing of vermiculite.[1]
Until 2013,Rio Tinto owned 57.7 per cent of Palabora andAnglo American owned 16.8 per cent.[2] In September 2011, both companies announced that they planned to sell their stakes because its copper operation was "no longer of a sufficient scale."[3][4] In December 2012, they reached a pre-sale agreement to sell their collective 74.5 per cent interest at R110 per share in a deal that valued Palabora at R5.31 billion. The purchasing consortium was led by a Chinese state-owned entity, theHebei Iron and Steel Group (35 per cent of the consortium); it also comprised the state-owned South AfricanIndustrial Development Corporation (20 per cent), General Nice Development (25 per cent), and Tewoo Group (20 per cent).[5][6]
The Palabora mine was anopen-pit operation until 2002, when the pit reached its final economic depth. Mining subsequently began in an underground mine which was constructed between 2001 and 2004.[7][8] It is the only producing copper mine operating in South Africa, as well as the largest employer in Ba-Phalaborwa.[9]
| Subsidiaries and joint ventures | |
|---|---|
| Assets | |
| People | |
