African Rainbow Minerals, the JSE-listed miner known as ARM, digs platinum-group metals, iron ore and manganese, and its 2026 annual report sets out how it plans to spend almost R16 billion. Most of it goes on a platinum mine in Limpopo, and the rest reopens a nickel mine in Mpumalanga that has been on care and maintenance, kept safe but not producing, since 2021. The board approved both in July, so the report is less an announcement than a full account of what ARM has signed up for.
Two mines on very different clocks
Bokoni Platinum Mines takes R15.2 billion, spent over seven years from the 2027 financial year to 2033. ARM will first refurbish the existing processing plant, due to start producing in the first half of its 2028 financial year, and then add a new plant twice its size, due in the second half of 2030. Full output, about 350,000 to 400,000 ounces of platinum-group metals a year, is expected in 2032.
ARM expects Bokoni to pay back its cost in 6.3 years, and plans to fund it mainly itself, using cash from Bokoni as production ramps up plus some outside debt. On 1 October, community trusts, an employee share trust and black industrialist investors bought into the mine's holding company, which will give them an indirect 15% of Bokoni.
Nkomati is the quick one. For R753 million, ARM will restart open-pit mining and the production of nickel concentrate, ore processed to raise its nickel content before refining, and bring back South Africa's only primary nickel producer. The mine has 13 years of life in it and should pay back its cost in 5.3. Boliden, which has agreed to buy the concentrate, has finished its responsible-sourcing checks, but the deal is not yet unconditional.
The year that pays for it
ARM can afford to start. It closed its financial year at the end of June with about R10.2 billion of net cash, up from R6.6 billion a year earlier, and its dividends for the year come to R12 a share.
Where that cash came from is the awkward part. Headline earnings, the profit figure JSE companies report with one-off items stripped out, rose 19%, primarily on higher dollar prices for platinum-group metals, and the platinum division went from a loss to a profit of R1.3 billion. The iron ore and manganese business went the other way, with iron ore earnings down 41% and manganese down 68%.
So a platinum build that runs to 2032 is being started on the back of a platinum price ARM does not set. Its own report calls the long-term outlook for platinum demand constructive, despite the headwind it expects from battery electric vehicles. The first of the two bets to dig anything will be Nkomati, where mining is scheduled to restart before October is out.
