Construction of Aim-listed Jubilee Metals’ Project Roan is quickly nearing completion, with commissioning activities targeted to start during December, slightly ahead of the anticipated timetable and notwithstanding international freight and logistics challenges.

Project Roan, which is targeting production of 10 000 t/y through the integrated copper processing plant in northern Zambia, remains on track to start delivering copper concentrate to the upgraded Sable Refinery during the first quarter of 2022.

In addition to Project Roan, Jubilee is also targeting the construction of a further two such copper concentrating facilities as part of its Northern Zambian refining strategy, as the company targets the delivery of in excess of 25 000 t/y of copper by the end of 2023.

On the back of positive results from the preliminary work undertaken at the Troulli copper project, in Cyprus, coupled with the fact that Caerus Mineral Resources has successfully increased its prospective rights, which offers the potential of greater scale to the project, Jubilee has reached an agreement with Caerus to extend its option agreement for a further 18 months, with both parties working towards a possible joint venture during the first quarter of 2022.

Jubilee is, meanwhile, planning to upscale its engineering team in Cyprus as it advances its test programme at the Troulli project.

In terms of its platinum group metals (PGMs) projects, Jubilee has completed the $21-million construction and commissioning of the extensive upgrade capitalisation programme at the Inyoni PGM operations.

The upgrade programme has significantly enhanced Inyoni’s processing capability by providing the flexibility to process a variety of third-party PGM feed materials, making it one of the only large-scale PGM plants capable of processing blended ores.

The capitalisation programme was undertaken over an 11-month period and included a chrome recovery circuit together with a new feed blending and classification circuit with a significantly expanded PGMs recovery circuit with the capability, based on its design, to process up to 75 000 t a month of chrome and PGMs-rich material.

Inyoni is now uniquely positioned to capitalise on the variety of PGM feed materials offered to the market, Jubilee said in its statement on November 17.

Jubilee’s PGM operational target for the current financial period remains at 50 000 oz, despite the interruptions to operations during the construction and commissioning of the upgrade programme.

In the meantime, Jubilee continues to review the available options to expand its processing footprint into the eastern limb of the Bushveld Complex’s PGMs-bearing region.