Jubilee Metals has entered into a joint venture (JV) agreement with a private Zambian company securing the rights to process 2 million tonnes copper run-of-mine (ROM) material that comprises 2% copper.
The supply of copper ore is estimated to have further potential to increase to approximately 4 million tonnes with an additional 2.5 million tonnes comprising tailings for processing.
The project is aimed at the near-term production of copper concentrate through a newly constructed copper concentrating facility at a brownfield site adjacent to the tailings, whose construction design has been completed by the Jubilee.
Jubilee CEO Leon Coetzer said: “This JV Agreement offers tremendous earnings potential for Jubilee. The Project has been a key target for Jubilee to drive the ramp-up in our copper production while we are implementing our previously announced Project Elephant.
“This transaction complements the already secured large copper resource and will provide us with earnings in the near term.
“The earnings of this Project is further bolstered when we commence the processing of the 150 million tonnes of tailings secured under Project Elephant, allowing us to expand and fill to capacity, over the long term, our Sable Refinery.”
Jubilee will build, own and operate a copper concentrating facility
Jubilee has agreed to build, own and operate the processing facility, while its JV partner would deliver the ROM material and tailings at no cost to the JV.
The processing facility is planned to be commissioned in two phases, with the first copper concentrate and revenues expected to be realised within four months.
In addition, the JV partner will take responsibility of producing the copper concentrates, planned to be sold on an arms-length basis, while the Jubilee’s Sable Refinery owns the first right to concentrate.
Coetzer added: “The combination of easily accessible large surface resources, together with a fully operational copper refinery, offers us the potential to replicate, at a larger scale, the success Jubilee is achieving with its PGM and Chrome operations in South Africa.Our exceptional in-house processing and metals recovery abilities are core to this success.
“For Jubilee to have entered into this JV Agreement so soon after announcing Project Elephant is testament to a period of intensive work by our team and I would like to thank everyone for their efforts. We have already completed the designs for our Processing Facility and engaged with key equipment suppliers to accelerate the implementation of Project Roan.”
