(Bloomberg) ? Bermuda-registered Aquarius Platinum Ltd. will wait for Zimbabwe?s government to clarify its position on mine ownership before spending as much as $50 million to boost production at the Mimosa project co-owned by Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe?s president, said twice this week the state may demand as much as 50 percent of the country?s mines, Reuters reported. Mimosa?s platinum output, 60,000 ounce in the year to June, can be doubled if Aquarius gets ?certainty,? Chief Executive Officer Stuart Murray said.

?There is potential for further expansion at Mimosa, but we need the situation to be clarified,? Murray said in an interview at the Bermuda-based company?s offices in Johannesburg. Impala Chief Executive Keith Rumble and Finance Director David Brown, who is visiting the South African company?s mines in Zimbabwe, weren?t immediately available for comment.

Mugabe?s government has been taking over white-owned commercial farms since 2000, slashing export income from tobacco and other crops and deepening a six-year economic recession. ?We want to control the mining sector. We want to control the manufacturing sector,? Mugabe said yesterday on state television, according to Reuters.

?No one knows what these statements by Mugabe mean,? Tony Hawkins, an economist at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, said in a telephone interview. ?He makes these comments when he?s electioneering, but who knows how seriously to take them??

Zimbabwe?s parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place by April.

Impala, the world?s second-biggest platinum producer, is considering an expansion of its Zimplats mine in Zimbabwe, at a cost of as much as $409 million, Rumble said last month in an interview.

Rio Tinto Group, the world?s third-largest mining company, expects to start production at its Murowa diamond mine this year, spokesman Richard Brimelow said in a telephone interview from London. He declined to comment on Mugabe?s remarks.

?We don?t know anything other than what we?ve read in the press,? he said. ?In the bigger scheme of things, Murowa is a small, small operation for us.?

Anglo American Platinum Corp., the world?s largest platinum miner, is digging a platinum mine in Zimbabwe, which will start producing in 2008, spokesman Mike Mtakati said by phone from Johannesburg. He declined to comment on Mugabe?s remarks.

?There?s just not much we can say until we have confirmed with the government of Zimbabwe whether it is indeed their position as reported,? Mtakati said.

David Murangari, the president of Zimbabwe?s Chamber of Mines, declined to comment.