Jubilee Metals Group PLC (LON:JLP) chief executive Leon Coetzer said a joint venture to process up to 4mln tonnes of copper tailings in Zambia has “tremendous earnings potential”.
The plan is to start with an initial 2mln tonnes of leftover material containing more than 2% copper via a processing facility that will cost US$15mln, with first production expected in the next four months.
Jubilee said it expects is to add 10,000 tonnes to output per year at a cash cost of US$4,000 of the metal. Payback on the initial investment is expected in one year.
The metals group is building significant commercial traction in Zambia following the acquisition of the Sable Refinery, which will be used to further refine a concentrate product from the new facility.
This latest deal will be instrumental in taking Jubilee towards its goal of 25,000 tonnes a year of copper production.
In June, the group said it had secured the rights to 150 million tonnes of copper-containing surface tailings for processing through Sable.
In a statement, Jubilee CEO Coetzer said: "This transaction complements the already secured large copper resource and will provide us with earnings in the near term. The earnings of this project are 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.”
He added that the combination of easily accessible large surface resources, together with a fully operational copper refinery, offered the potential to replicate at a larger scale, the success Jubilee is achieving with its platinum group metals and chrome in South Africa.
“Our exceptional in-house processing and metals recovery abilities are core to this success,” Coetzer said.