Jubilee Metals Group saw a strong operational performance from its South Africa PGM and chrome operations that exceeded its guidance for the 12 months to June 30, the diversified metals processing group said in an operational update yesterday.
The results reflected an ability to successfully navigate power and infrastructure challenges in South Africa, the London and JSE listed UK-based group said.
PGM operations recorded 42 474 ounces, up from 41 456 ounces in 2022. PGM production increased 2% over the 2022 financial year, exceeding full year guidance of 38 000 ounces.
“In South Africa, Inyoni continues to go from strength-to-strength. Our expansion strategy will see production increase further in the year ahead, as evidenced by our guidance for financial 2024 of 42 000 PGM ounces and chrome production stepping up to 1 450 000 tons,” CEO Leon Coetzer said.
The initial impact of power outages in South Africa was addressed via increased stock holding and the installation of back-up power units at chrome operation in November 2022.
Chrome production increased by 7% to 1 289 890 tonnes, exceeding full year guidance of 1 200 000 tonnes.
The new 360 000 tonne per annum chrome concentrate facility delivered its first saleable product in the same month.
Copper production of 2 923 tonnes increased 29%, marginally below the revised guidance of 3 000 tonnes, primarily due to previously announced power and water disruptions in Zambia in the first half, which impacted the ramp-up of the Roan Concentrator.
A decision was reached to upgrade Roan as a central processing hub to accommodate more copper waste feed streams. This was motivated by the size of copper waste opportunity presented to Jubilee, the company said in a statement yesterday.
The upgrade of the Roan facility started in the first quarter of 2023 and was expected to be completed over a 12-week period.
“Having expanded into Zambia in 2018, our technical research and process development work has allowed us to fully understand the extent of the waste and non-traditional ore opportunities. Jubilee’s technical process development team has completed its ongoing test work to both increase Jubilee’s ability to process a wider range of these vast copper materials, as well as address key operational lessons learned to date at the Roan concentrator,” said Coetzer.
“At completion, the Roan concentrator will offer unique processing capability in Zambia to simultaneously target a variety of feed streams producing three products for further refining or selling to the market,” the group said.
Cobalt refining capacity at Sable refinery remained allocated to copper production, a decision that would be reviewed depending on the recovery in cobalt prices.
Construction on the PGM Eastern Limb expansion to target an additional 25 000 PGM ounces per annum was expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2023.
On June 6, the company secured a long-term processing partnership comprising an expansion of 360 000 tonnes per annum of chrome concentrate and 10 000 PGM ounces per annum.
The partnership offered Jubilee the opportunity to obtain greater exposure to the chrome price and achieve higher margins compared with the company’s existing fixed price chrome tolling agreements. Jubilee holds an option to further expand the partnership to produce 720 000 tonnes per annum of chrome concentrate.
Discussion were underway to achieve an annualised chrome concentrate production rate of 2 million tonnes (60% expansion) by the end of the 2024 calendar year.
For the 2024 financial year chrome operations were expected to reach a record of 1 450 000 tonnes of chrome following completion of the new 360 000 tonne per annum chrome concentrate facility announced in June 2023.
Copper guidance would be reviewed after the completion of the Roan upgrade, but the focus remained to achieve 25 000 tonnes per annum capability by 2025.
“Our Northern Strategy continues to progress on several fronts, including advanced talks to secure a significant operational refining footprint, from where we are able to establish a central refining footprint in the area. The Jubilee team is working to complete the ongoing pilot trials to optimise the targeted process solution for the treatment of the range of northern copper and cobalt wastes,” he said.
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