Middelburg Smelting Facility
Completion of the acquisition of the Thos Begbie smelter complex in September 2010 has opened the doors to significant advances in Jubilee’s mine-to-metals strategy. The complex is located near the town of Middelburg in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province and the town itself is one of the country’s principal metallurgical centres.
Middelburg itself is well served by established infrastructure. And it is located at the southern extremity of the BIC’s eastern limb which is host to the company’s own Tjate project and to Northam Platinum’s Booysendal mine development. The Thos Begbie complex will be the nucleus of Jubilee’s platinum smelting and ferroalloys operations. Its acquisition opens the way for two complementary business strategies - the immediately cash generative production of ferroalloys and, in the slightly longer term, the profitable smelting of PGE concentrates.
The Thos Begbie acquisition was paralleled by the acquisition of a 51% interest in Power Alt, an independent power generation company. The importance of this acquisition cannot be understated. Power Alt operates a gas-fired electrical power plant, which provides power independence and welcome security from the very present risk of cuts in grid power. The Power Alt facility, with its existing 10MVA generating capacity, offsets the metallurgical complex’s own electricity needs and will form the basis of an expansion into a stand-alone gas-powered generation business.
Platinum
Work is well under way on the construction of Jubilee’s first new ConRoast 5MW DC arc furnace that will treat various PGE concentrates and other PGE-bearing material including U/G sludge from Northam and Sylvania The project is scheduled for completion by the end of 2011. The ConRoast construction project has been largely outsourced to Pyromet Tenova, an internationally reputed specialist in the implementation of pyrometallurgical projects.
All relevant environmental applications have been submitted timeously and no permitting delays are expected.
Ferroalloys
The use of existing smelting facilities enables the production and processing of a diverse range of steel industry products - charge chrome, stainless steel, ferronickel, ferrosilicon and ferromanganese. These facilities have been fully contracted, resulting in an immediate boost to cash flows.
Expansion of the ferroalloys operations with a new 5MW AC arc furnace is scheduled to be in operation during 2011 to complement the two existing 2.5MW AC arc furnaces.