Jubilee Metals Group plc (LON:JLP) Chief Executive Officer Leon Coetzer caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss key milestones, supporting copper growth in Zambia, new power purchase agreement, factors driving performance in South Africa, and confidence in meeting FY25 production guidance.
Q1: Leon, with key milestones reached at the Roan Concentrator and Munkoyo projects, how are these developments supporting Jubilee Metals’ copper growth in Zambia?
A1: What Zambia really is focused on is mirroring the successful strategy we implemented in South Africa and is anchored by first and foremost, establishing a processing footprint in country. In Zambia, of course, that is Sable and Roan, two fundamental processing areas where we look to refine our materials to produce copper.
On the completion of the Roan upgrade, it brings into play an immediate processing capacity, which we can now fill with the resources we bring on stream equally at Sable. Munkoyo is a fundamental resource that we acquired in June that has been brought into operation and successfully expanded with its key target being to fill our Sable refinery.
So, it’s a fundamental example of how a resource that we’ve acquired is brought into operation to take up the capacity that we’ve installed over the past few years in both our refining and copper concentrating capacity.
Q2: How has the new power purchase agreement improved operational stability, and what impact will it have on the group’s expansion into Zambia?
A2: Well, fundamental. Very few people understand the sheer challenges that Zambia has been facing in its power availability, partly due to the drought that the country has faced, and of course, 85-90% of all electricity in Zambia is hydropower generated. So, that all has been placed under threat with the drought the country has faced. It has translated into a state of unstable power, unreliable power, and often very many, many hours for most of the day of power cuts that rolls across the country.
Our ability to have secured private power that services all of our operations and meets all of our demands is a fundamental requirement under the current situation in Zambia to ensure that we are actually able to operate our facilities.
It was a fundamental coup by our team to secure the power, reliable power, that’s gone live as of the 22nd of September, to allow us to actually complete even the commissioning and ramp up of our facilities.
So, where we sit today, we have both Sable and Roan receiving constant, reliable power from a private power company, a fundamental requirement in meeting our targets.
Q3: How does the newly acquired open pit projects like Munkoyo and Project G strengthen the company’s copper strategy?
A3: Both these two projects are an example of the resources that we are securing and acquiring and bringing into operation, from acquisition to operational, within six months.
If you look at Munkoyo, acquired in June, hit its full operational targets by October. So, within a six-month period from acquisition, we are able to open up the resource, expand it, and start delivering it into the established processing capacity in Zambia. Both these two resources are destined for refining at Sable. Equally in Roan, it has its dedicated resource that we have secured, ramped up, and now takes up the capacity that’s been built at Project Roan
That’s really what the shareholders will start seeing, is as these resources are brought into operation and expanded, you’ll see in our numbers as that delivery of high-grade copper feed material starts coming into our processes, how it reflects in copper produced.
Q4: Now, chrome and PGM output in South Africa has grown substantially. What factors are driving this performance and can we expect to see this trend continue, do you think?
A4: Yes, South Africa has had an exceptional performance again, and, if you just roll the clock back four years, we were pushing to try and make 40,000 to 50,000 tonne of material a year. Today, we speak of 1.7 and 1.8 million tonnes of product we make a year so it’s been an exceptional exponential growth story.
And yes, we are growing again with two further operating modules coming on stream, but it’ll be organic growth from here on. One can’t expect the same exponential growth to come through, but definitely constantly pushing to grow that company even further.
The growth was driven by the fact that the group at its core is an exceptional processor of materials to recover metals and value from these reefs and that drove the growth where we set new standards in the industry on what can be extracted. That’s exactly what we’re mirroring in Zambia on our copper side.
Q5: Now, with recent advancements, how confident are you in meeting Jubilee Metals’ FY25 production targets across copper, chrome and PGM?
A5: Well, as the numbers show so far as African PGM and chrome businesses, they’re well on track to meet and possibly even exceed those guidance’s, and on copper, we are very confident where we are today.
The key, key, key milestone that we had to achieve in this past quarter was get secure power in a country that is suffering a power crisis. Get our refining and processing capacity commissioned and ramped up, get our resources into operation to take up that capacity.
Therefore, we have now the foundation to meet these guidance’s that we have set for our copper, and of course, you’ll see on our quarterly production rate, if you extrapolate into the future, how that guidance is set to increase in the in the next financial period.
