African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) chief Executive Mike Schmidt said on Wednesday that the company's currently closed Nkomati nickel mine could become a long-life, high-grade nickel mine. But that depends on market conditions.
The mine, a mine of nickel mined underground, has been under maintenance since March.
The economically viable strip portion of the mine had already been excavated.
But there was still a huge opportunity in the downhole part of the mine, Mr Schmidt told a conference.
He said the mine would have a working life of 15-20 years, based on extracting 200,000 tons of ore a month.
By-products of the mine also include platinum group metals, copper and cobalt, he said.
"The mine still has potential, but the question is what will be the trigger."
"I don't think the nickel price is far enough away to trigger us to develop the mine.
The mine is a joint venture between ARM, Norilsk Nickel Africa and Nkomati.
According to the data, the mine has proven ore reserves of approximately 46.35 million tons, with approximately 0.4% nickel, 0.13% copper, 0.02% cobalt and 0.97 g/t platinum.
