Jubilee reports ‘rapid operational expansion’ in second quarter

27th July 2018 By: Natasha Odendaal - Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

The second quarter of 2018 marked another successful period of rapid operational expansion for Jubilee Metals, with the dual-listed company making solid strides across its operations in South Africa and Zambia.

The construction of the fines chrome recovery plant at Jubilee’s Dilokong Chrome Mine (DCM) operation is well under way, while the group started delivering platinum group metals (PGMs) material from its PlatCro platinum project, which aims to double its processing rate by February 2019.

“We have also started with the construction of the zinc recovery circuit at Kabwe, while the design of the lead recovery circuit is being concluded,” says Jubilee CEO Leon Coetzer.

Chrome Project

This comes as the Hernic platinum and chrome project, in South Africa, continues to perform well, with production up 18% to 5 800 oz during the second quarter of 2018.

“The increase in PGM ounces produced had a significant impact on the earnings soaring by more than 40%,” he says, adding that the company also reported a record production of 2 100 PGM ounces in a single month during the quarter under review.

The lower feed supplies that had hampered production in June have been overcome and the project is poised to break through to a production rate of 6 000 oz a quarter, he assures.

“We expect to further increase this production rate, in line with the increase in reclaimed surface material delivered by Hernic,” Coetzer adds.

At the DCM project, the commissioning of the newly expanded fine chrome recovery circuit is expected during the fourth quarter of 2018.

During the second quarter, Jubilee increased its investment into the upgrade of the existing chrome beneficiation plant, which has the potential to “dramatically enhance” the production of chrome at the operation.

DCM’s chrome production is expected to remain at its current levels during the construction of the fine chrome recovery plant, with the existing DCM material containing mostly fine chrome and enriched PGMs.

Meanwhile, Jubilee started delivering PGM material from PlatCro to Northam Platinum’s Eland platinum operation, with 31 000 t of material delivered during June.

Jubilee started the expansion of the material sorting and dewatering plant to support the targeted ramp-up of material delivery to 50 000 t/m.

“The target is to build a stockpile in excess of 200 000 t of PGM-rich material at the Eland platinum concentrator prior to commencing platinum recovery in February 2019,” Coetzer says.

Further, the construction of the zinc recovery circuit at its Kabwe zinc/lead/vanadium project, in Zambia, continues, with the initial construction focus on the zinc primary leach recovery circuit.

Metals Recovery

“The enhanced process flow sheet for the Kabwe project includes a separated zinc and lead recovery circuit, which significantly improves the flexibility of the metals recovery plant. This allows the project team to independently execute the zinc and lead metals recovery strategy,” he says.

The final design for the lead recovery circuit is under review, with the circuit design review and optimisation testwork including work to determine the commercially optimal product purity specifications.

The final design parameters for the project will be completed during third quarter of 2018.