Mining is a fine balance between commercial viability and environmental sustainability, and Jubilee is committed to operating in a manner that will ensure the longevity of both the operations and the areas and communities surrounding its operations.
As a result, Jubilee endeavours to manage and mitigate the impact on affected natural ecosystems, contribute towards biodiversity conservation, ensure effective and appropriate land rehabilitation, and ensure that comprehensive disaster management plans are in place. Work in this regard is ongoing and Jubilee aims to continue to improve its waste minimisation measures, its energy efficiency, and its air, land and water management systems.
Jubilee has begun monitoring key environmental indicators for the Tjate project via a recently commissioned environmental base line study. This will complement the environmental impact assessment that will follow acceptance of its application. As such, the Company aims to establish a benchmark against which it can measure the impact of activities once mining operations begin.
Apart from the economic and technical advantages of ConRoast over conventional six-in-line smelters, the process has a significant environmental advantage in that virtually all of the sulphur in the concentrate is converted in one stage into sulphur dioxide in the roasting plant and immediately converted into sulphuric acid. As a result, there is little risk of fugitive gas escaping into the atmosphere, as can be the case with conventional multi-stage processes. ConRoast is not restricted to processing low-sulphur ores as some of the conventional smelters.
Furthermore an important environmental advantage is that all of the chrome-rich UG2 and nickel-rich Platreef ores can be mined without the need to blend them with low-chrome sulphide rich Merensky reef ore, from which the waste products can lead to acid drainage, a condition, which arises from the generation of acid left in un-mined or un-processed underground sulphidic rocks on surface dumps. These products, together with the waste dumped from processing of the ores, can leach and generate acid run-off potentially polluting ground water.