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(Sharecast News) - Jubilee Metals announced the successful completion of the water infrastructure upgrade at its Roan Project on Monday, as well as continued advances in the production of cobalt and copper from waste at its Sable Refinery in Zambia.
The AIM-traded firm had announced on 22 November that its new Roan copper concentrator was facing continued water supply interruptions, severely hampering its ability to operate at design throughput levels.
It said the installation of a new dedicated water infrastructure and upgraded power and feed supply infrastructure had been completed successfully with the restart of operations back to nameplate capacity.
"Significant progress continues to be made by Jubilee's technical and operational teams, with the development and ramp-up to commercial level, of new extractive methods for the recovery of copper and cobalt from historical waste, at the Company's Sable Refinery," the board added in its statement.
"These developments provide unique solutions to unlocking the value from vast copper and cobalt containing wastes."
Looking at the Sable copper production trial, meanwhile, the company previously announced that it was focussed on a direct leaching approach, bypassing the need for traditional "power-intensive" smelting of copper sulphide concentrates.
Jubilee said the trials had been "extremely effective", allowing for significantly lower operating costs, as well as for Sable to produce copper from mixed materials such as copper sulphide and copper oxide ores.
The company said it believed the new approach to extraction offered "significant" growth opportunities in the country.
"As a result, the company is examining new run-of-mine material agreements with third-party producers which offer the potential to further enhance growth for its operations at the Sable refinery," the directors explained.
On cobalt production at Sable, Jubilee said it was targeting the initial production of 50 tonnes of contained cobalt metal - the equivalent of around 220 tonnes of final product - before ramping up to the 1,200 tonnes of contained cobalt metal annual capacity, equating to about 5,280 tonnes of final product.
Cobalt production from waste remained in-line with management's expectations.
"Solving the technical challenges places the company in a unique opportunity to pursue tremendous potential growth opportunities in the efficient recovery of cobalt from historical wastes, including also from mixed copper cobalt materials.
"The company is currently considering upscale the production of cobalt through the potential acquisition of refining infrastructures to expand its cobalt footprint in Zambia."
Jubilee said the additional cobalt revenue offered the firm further opportunities to secure metal-backed funding in support of the implementation of the northern refining strategy.
Finally, on the corporate front, the company said it had undertaken a restructuring of its executive team in-line with its expanding production profile, and in particular ahead of its next phase of growth in Zambia via the northern refining strategy.
As Jubilee expanded its operational footprint and project portfolio, the board said it was also required to continuously review, and where necessary expand, its leadership within its executive team.
The review would inevitably lead to changes in certain leadership roles as the firm upskilled to meet the demands of a growing enterprise, the directors explained.
To that end, the company had expanded its commercial and financial management teams in South Africa and Zambia to both further strengthen its corporate governance as well as dedicate commercial teams to Zambia in support of its project execution team.
During this restructure, chief strategy officer Pedja Kovacevic would also be assuming the role of group chief financial officer with immediate effect.
Jubilee described Kovacevic as a "highly experienced" CFO, with "vast experience" in the corporate funding and international debt markets.
"We have brought the entire southern copper strategy into nameplate production and next quarter will see a new source of revenue for Jubilee in the form of first sales for our cobalt production," said chief executive officer Leon Coetzer.
"In Sable, we have now successfully implemented a new way of producing copper in Zambia, which bypasses the need to smelt the material, which is expensive and energy intensive.
"This new extraction approach allows for multiple ores to be produced at once, similar to what we have achieved at our Inyoni PGM plant in South Africa."
Coetzer described it as a "game changer" for Jubilee, opening new opportunities beyond its existing operations in Zambia.
"As we conclude 2022, we now focus our attention on unlocking the potential of our northern refining strategy in Zambia."
At 1204 GMT, shares in Jubilee Metals Group were down 3.07% at 10.1p.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
