Mimosa revives $130m North Hill project as PGM prices rebound

Mimosa, the platinum mine near Zvishavane in Zimbabwe jointly owned by Impala Platinum and Sibanye-Stillwater, is reviving its $130m North Hill life-extension project after a sustained recovery in PGM prices made the investment viable again. General manager Stephen Ndiyamba said the company was "working internally on consideration of a life of mine extension project which will require a capital investment of about $130-million," adding that it "has the potential to replace our current operations at South Hill and increase life of mine by about 15 years."

A project shelved at the bottom of the cycle

Mimosa suspended North Hill in 2024, when PGM prices had collapsed under the weight of destocking across the value chain, weak automotive demand and expectations, since only partly realised, of a rapid shift to electric vehicles. The reversal since then has been dramatic: PGM prices used in autocatalysts have recovered strongly, supported by persistently tight supply from South Africa, the world's dominant platinum producer, and adoption of electric vehicles that has proceeded more slowly than many forecasters expected two or three years ago.

Zimbabwe's second-largest platinum mine

Mimosa produces roughly 250,000 oz of PGM concentrate annually, making it Zimbabwe's second-largest platinum producer behind Implats' own Zimplats operation. In the financial year to June 2026, Mimosa's 6E concentrate production actually fell 6% to 239,100 oz, with intermittent power interruptions and increasingly complex geology weighing on processing stability, underlining why a life-extension investment like North Hill matters: without new ore sources, the mine's existing ore bodies will eventually deplete.

The North Hill revival illustrated how directly Zimbabwean PGM investment decisions track the metals price cycle, with projects switched on and off as prices swing between profitability and loss. For its two major shareholders, both of which were separately pursuing PGM growth options elsewhere in Zimbabwe, Mimosa's revived project added a further, comparatively low-risk brownfields option to a growing list of ways the two South African producers were positioning themselves to benefit from the Great Dyke's long-term potential. A final investment decision on North Hill had not yet been taken, with the company saying further internal work was needed before it could commit the full $130m required.

Sources

• Mining Weekly: Zimbabwe's Mimosa revives $130m platinum project after price rebound, 18 Jun 2026

Photo: The Great Dyke region of Zimbabwe, near where Mimosa is reviving its North Hill project. ISS Expedition 25 crew, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.