Jubilee Metals has completed the upgrade, implementation, and commissioning of an existing brownfield processing facility, on the western limb of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa.
Company chief executive Leon Coetzer said the expansion of the chrome operations intends to take advantage of price support in the market for chrome, coupled with their continued strong operational performance.
“Our chrome production units form a vital part of the South African business’ profitability and cost competitiveness, especially at a time when chrome prices are particularly strong, and this largely offsets the weakness in the PGM basket price,” said Coetzer.
“The strength and robustness of our diversified metal focus is best demonstrated during such volatility in metal prices, where both chrome and copper are seeing strong price support, offsetting the weakness in both PGMs and cobalt.”
Jubilee has successfully traded 24,500 tonnes of the innovative chrome product so far, and it expects to further boost its trading volumes by an additional 17,000 tonnes of top-quality metallurgical grade every month.
This is estimated to result in an additional 60,000 tonnes of chrome concentrate and 4,000 PGM ounces being contributed by the end of December.
Jubilee said the long-term chrome processing partnership provides the potential for an additional chrome processing capacity of 360 000 tonnes per annum targeting an additional 200 000 tonnes of chrome concentrate and 10 000 PGM oz per annum to Inyoni’s profile.
Meanwhile, Coetzer said the upgrade of their Roan copper concentrator sets a new standard in the processing of mixed copper ores in Zambia.
“The copper recoveries exceeded our expectations and confirmed the potential of the process route that we are developing,” he said.
“This process solution offers tremendous potential to deploy a low-cost efficient copper processing solution for the vast historical tails in Zambia.”
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
