Jubilee Metals Group is replicating its modular concentrator strategy at its Zambia copper operations, following the success of the strategy in the group's former platinum operations in South Africa.
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JSE-listed Jubilee Metals Group, which has copper operations in Zambia, said its Roan concentrator has returned to full operations following a maintenance shutdown in May, and measures have also been put in place to mitigate rising fuel and acid prices.
The group said in an update on Thursday that it is targeting a processing run rate of 30,000 tons per month of (run-of-mine) ROM, with increased copper oxide recovery rates due to the expanded flotation circuit.
"The successful progression of the Roan dewatering circuit through commissioning and ramp-up marks another important milestone in the expansion of our Zambia copper operations,” said CEO Leon Coetzer in a statement.
The maintenance activities at Roan had focused on the ROM feed circuit and maintenance of the internal pumping mechanisms of the flotation units, as well as final modifications to the new dewatering circuit for the fines concentrate.
The scheduled downtime was also used to implement measures to counter the sharp rise in global fuel and acid prices. These included expanding the copper oxide recovery circuit to further improve copper efficiencies by up to 5%, to partly offset the near 80% increase in local fuel prices, which directly impacts the transport costs associated with ROM delivered to Roan and copper oxide concentrate transported to the Sable refinery.
Acid consumption and transport costs currently account for about 20% and 16% of monthly expenditure, respectively.
The commissioning of the new fine copper concentrate dewatering facility was completed, with fine-tuning of performance measures underway to achieve stable continuous operations.
The upgrade to the copper oxide flotation circuit was to further improve copper recoveries and enhance operating efficiencies, and also partly offset rising fuel and chemical costs.
Coetzer said the ability to process both newly generated fine concentrate material together with the historical stockpile provides better operational flexibility and supports the continued scaling of their integrated copper strategy.
“We expect the June 2026 performance to provide a clearer indication of sustainable operating capacity and recovery efficiencies with the addition of the fines concentrate from Roan now being processed at Sable. The monthly fines concentrate production contains an approximate 140 tons of copper previously stockpiled at Roan," said Coetzer.
Roan is key to the company's copper production strategy, processing third-party run-of-mine (ROM) copper ore into copper concentrates for further refining at the Sable refinery, while also producing high-grade copper sulphide concentrate for sale in the market.
The Roan circuit has been upgraded over three years to accommodate variances in quality and consistency of third-party ROM, offering a unique solution to recover copper from complex ROM sources.
The expanded copper concentrate dewatering circuit is designed to accelerate the drying and processing of fine copper concentrate material. This was commissioned prior to the start of the annual maintenance shutdown to address final adjustments.
The circuit is expected to operate at full capacity following the restart of the Roan operations, said Coetzer.
The fines concentrate stream accounts for about 25.5% of the contained copper within the total ROM feed to Roan. “The new concentrate dewatering circuit demonstrated sufficient operating capacity at throughput rates above current fine concentrate production levels," said Coetzer.
Roan currently holds significant stocks of fine concentrate material that had naturally dried in the current dry weather period, allowing transport to Sable to supplement any temporary interruptions in dried fine concentrate production.
Roan is currently operating at full capacity, targeting 30,000 tons per month of ROM.
"The success of the interventions to further improve copper efficiencies will be known over the coming week as Roan's in-circuit inventory is rebuilt at stable operations," said Coetzer.
Roan holds the option to further increase throughput with the inclusion of the front-end DMS circuit, which will be considered during June 2026.
Jubilee’s share price fell 1.6% to 61 cents on Thursday midday, while a year ago the share was trading at 102 cents per share.
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