Smelting
During 2010, Jubilee consolidated its strategy of commercialising its exclusive rights to ConRoast smelting technology, signing agreements with two platinum companies, Northam Platinum and Sylvania Platinum.
In July 2010, Jubilee and Northam signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to jointly investigate the feasibility of establishing a ConRoast smelter at Jubilee’s Middelburg Smelting Facility dedicated to Northam’s future production from its Booysendal mine. Discussions are ongoing to formalise the stated intention of the parties to the MOU to joint venture the building, commissioning and operation of a 5MW smelter to process PGE concentrates from the Booysendal mine. Strategically, the establishment of a ConRoast furnace offers an attractive alternative to Northam’s current smelter, that is independent of uncertain national grid power from the state electricity utility Eskom.
Jubilee’s framework agreement with Sylvania takes the form of a joint venture to investigate the viability of establishing a smelter and refinery complex as part Sylvania’s developing Volspruit mine in the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex. Initial testing has confirmed that Volspruit platinum concentrate is highly amenable to smelting by the ConRoast process and that the resulting PGE-rich iron alloy can be effectively refined using CVMR’s carbonyl refining technology. This technology vaporises the base meats in the alloy using carbon monoxide gas, followed by the fractional distillation and decomposition of the gaseous metal carbonyls so formed into separate high purity metal powders. The platinum group metals in the alloy are not vaporised and remain behind as an enriched high-grade solid product.
Both Northam and Sylvania participated in the early ConRoast trials at Mintek.
During 2011, Jubilee Platinum’s new 5MW AC arc ferroalloy furnace will become operational as part of its expansion of the ferroalloy smelting division at Middelburg to meet increasing demand for ferronickel and other ferroalloys.
Jubilee has completed the design and engineering of its first ConRoast 5MW DC arc smelting furnace, the feed for which will include various PGE-bearing underground sludge and off-spec PGE concentrates from Sylvania and Northam.