Modern Mining October 2019

Ramp-up of Kabwe’s copper circuit on track

recovery processes to generate significant returns on capital investment, in tandem with addressing the environmental chal- lenges caused by the historic tailings in the area.” The Kabwe mine operated continu- ously for 88 years until closure in 1994 and ranked as one of the most famous mines in Africa. The tailings from the process- ing operations were discarded at site, but without the proper containment infrastruc- ture both from an air and ground water pollution point of view, which has created environmental problems for the surround- ing population. This situation is ideal for the Jubilee team to exploit through imple- menting its processing operations to create value from the metal-rich tailings, while alle- viating the environmental issues. Jubilee has deployed a senior manage- ment team to the integrated Kabwe project to further strengthen its existing team of 110 employees at Kabwe. The company expects the team to grow to 200 individu- als at full project capacities. 

Jubilee Metals Group, the AIM- and AltX- traded metals processing company, has provided an update on its Kabwe project in Zambia. Kabwe, combined with Jubilee’s recently acquired multi-metal Sable Refinery (previously referred to as Sable Zinc Refinery), which acts as a central pro- cessing facility for third party material in the region, gives access to a current resource comprising an estimated 6,4 Mt (3,2 million JORC-compliant) of surface waste assets containing 356 843 tonnes of zinc, 351 386 tonnes of lead and 1,26 % equivalent vana- dium pentoxide. The existing copper leaching circuit has been brought on-line to process his- torical copper tailings as well as third party sourced run of mine material, targeting the first plated copper cathode metal produc- tion during early Q4-2019. The ramp-up of the copper circuit remains on track targeting 250 tonnes of plated copper cathode per month during Q1-2020, before stepping up to reach 400

tonnes per month from Q2-2020, resulting in early project cash flows during the con- struction of the zinc and vanadium refining circuits. The project continues to receive keen interest from small to medium mining oper- ations offering third party copper material for further refining, which is in line with the vision of establishing Sable Refinery as a preferred regional refining hub. The zinc and vanadium circuit is primar- ily constructed for the processing of the Kabwe tailings material, targeting the pro- duction of 8 000 tonnes of zinc and 1 500 tonnes of vanadium pentoxide per annum. Completion of the zinc circuit remains on track for Q2-2020 with the vanadium circuit following during Q3-2020. “We have hit the ground running since acquiring the Sable Refinery and the com- mencement of operations is a major step towards the implementation of the project,” says Leon Coetzer, CEO of Jubilee. “Kabwe represents an ideal example of where we can implement our bespoke multi-metal

October 2019  MODERN MINING  9