Tharisa has reached an agreement with Zimbabwe on fiscal regulations for its proposed $545m Karo Platinum project, a critical step ahead of concluding its funding.
“Agreement has been reached with the Government on the substantive fiscal arrangements, and these are being finalised through the respective ministries,” said Phoevos Pouroulis, CEO of Tharisa.
He added: “Our financing team has made significant headway in structuring and negotiating facilities to achieve project completion”.
About $300m of project financing is outstanding. Tharisa is discussing debt terms with lenders as well as the possible participation of a strategic equity investor.
Pouroulis’s comments were made in Tharisa’s interim results announcement (to end-March) on Thursday in which the platinum and chrome miner reported a five-fold increase in headline share earnings of 16.6 US cents per share (2025: 2.9c/share).
In a later presentation, Pouroulis said the key discussion with the Zimbabwean government was about remitting dollars without which the company would not be able to make any of its proposed lending agreements fly.
“We are addressing what the lenders would require in terms of the ability to remit and pay in dollars,” said Michael Jones, Tharisa’s outgoing CFO. “Those fiscal stability provisions are absolutely key to securing that funding package.”
More straight-forward discussions have also been held with Zimbabwe in terms of the special mining lease for Karo Platinum. Special provisions include a 15 percent corporate tax and the duty-free importation of capital goods. The Zimbabwean government is a 15 percent shareholder in the Karo Platinum project.
Tharisa’s earnings were partly driven by an improvement in platinum group metals production while chrome output was unchanged. This production performance was despite inclement first quarter weather which affected grades.
But the larger part of the earnings increase was market related, especially a strong year-on-year recovery in platinum group metal prices which averaged $2,599/oz (2025: $1,403/oz). The chrome market was also robust. Tharisa reported an average metallurgical grade chrome price of $284/t compared to $253/t) previously.
“Overall, market fundamentals have remained strong,” said Pouroulis.
The PGMs market was “a complex environment” given its interplay of industrial and investment demand, the latter characterised by “increased investor interest in critical metals for the energy transition and AI driven technologies and data storage,” he said.
As for the chrome markets, there was the prospect of an improvement. The price had already ticked up to just over $300/t currently which Pouroulis said was probably related to the market compensating for higher freight costs globally.
However, the proposed resumption of ferrochrome production in South Africa could also impact chrome concentrate supply. Pipeline inventories for Glencore and Samancor ferrochrome production could total a combined 800,000 to one million tons. That could draw some chrome out of the market, said Pouroulis.
“It will therefore be supportive of current prices and potentially lead to a tightening of supply into Chinese port inventories, which have maintained a higher level than anticipated, with the slowdown and shutdown of a lot of ferrochrome capacity over the last 12 to 18 months in South Africa. So net supportive of chrome prices going forward,” said Pouroulis.