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Private company

Palabora

Logo: https://topempowerment.co.za/companies/palabora-mining-company/, Non-free logo, via Wikipedia3

South African public mining company

Palabora, officially Palabora Mining Company Limited, is a South African publicly-traded mining company headquartered in Phalaborwa, Limpopo. The company operates a single cluster of open-pit and underground mines producing mainly copper, as well as byproducts such as precious metals from anode slimes, nickel sulfate, sulfuric acid, magnetite, and vermiculite. Palabora also has processing facilities on site for the production of purified copper from mined copper ore, and a vermiculite recovery plant.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1956Founded1
  • HeadquartersLimpopo1

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Palabora-Open-Pit-Mine-2019
Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons5

Palabora, officially Palabora Mining Company Limited, is a South African publicly-traded mining company headquartered in Phalaborwa, Limpopo. The company operates a single cluster of open-pit and underground mines producing mainly copper, as well as byproducts such as precious metals from anode slimes, nickel sulfate, sulfuric acid, magnetite, and vermiculite.2

The story

Until 2013, Rio Tinto owned 57.7 per cent of Palabora and Anglo American owned 16.8 per cent. In September 2011, both companies announced that they planned to sell their stakes because its copper operation was "no longer of a sufficient scale."

In December 2012, the companies 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, the Hebei Iron and Steel Group (35 per cent of the consortium); it also comprised the state-owned South African Industrial Development Corporation (20 per cent), General Nice Development (25 per cent), and Tewoo Group (20 per cent).

From Wikipedia’s article on Palabora, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Timeline

  1. 1956Founded Founded1

Sources

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