Aim-listed metals processing company Jubilee Metals has acquired the rights to a further 944 000 t of platinum-group metals- (PGMs-) containing tailings on the Eastern Limb of the Bushveld Complex.

This follows a day after it announced that it had secured its first rights to tailings on the Eastern Limb in a separate transaction.

Until recently, Jubilee’s PGM operational footprint – which includes platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and gold – had been limited to the Western Limb, a single area of the two main PGM reefs in South Africa.

The latest agreement for the acquisition of surface tailings containing PGMs is linked to the prevailing PGMs basket price and is payable monthly in advance of uplifting the material and transporting it to Jubilee’s Inyoni PGMs plant.

Jubilee plans to start the upliftment of the PGMs material this month, targeting a minimum rate of 30 000 t a month, the equivalent of 1 600 oz of PGMs a month.

Jubilee CEO Leon Coetzer says the Eastern Limb has been a key focus of Jubilee to expand its PGMs reach and operational capacity and this material further solidifies the company’s presence there.

“Our reputation as the go-to partner in an ever-expanding operational footprint is just another example of our ability to outpace competitors and drive growth in the region and I am highly confident that we will secure further long-term feed supplies and operational presence driving our sustained earnings in South Africa,” he says.

The material will be initially processed at Jubilee’s expanded Inyoni PGMs facility.

The latest PGMs acquisition, together with those announced on June 3, ensures that the expanded Inyoni PGMs capacity is fully committed with current arising tailings alone, which excludes the existing historical tails already secured by Jubilee, thereby offering the opportunity to further expand the PGMs processing capacity.

In addition, Jubilee is considering implementing a dedicated processing facility on the Eastern Limb to further expand its processing footprint.

Nonetheless, the latest acquisition of material provides the option to Jubilee to secure additional processing capacity through acquisition, partnership or construction of a new facility to further expand its processing footprint.