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Jubilee intensifies SA platinum search
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Wed, 08 Nov 2006

[miningmx.com] -- EXPLORATION company Jubilee Platinum will spend $1.2m on a 10-hole drilling programme in as it moves towards releasing a pre-feasibility study by early next year at its flagship project in South Africa, technical director Andrew Sarosi said.

Drilling is focussed on the Dsjate property in the Tjate project, which is down dip from Impala Platinum’s Marula project on the northern part of the Eastern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex.

AIM-traded Jubilee has decided to focus on the base metals-rich Merensky Reef, which, at its shallowest point, is 650 metres underground and dips to about 1.1km, Sarosi told Miningmx in an interview.
preliminary pre-feasibility by early next year
The new drilling marks the second phase of the project after seven holes were drilled in the first phase. Three of the holes were targeted at the Merensky reef and the others at the deeper UG2 reef, he said.

“This is all work towards a pre-feasibility study. We will have a preliminary pre-feasibility by the end of the year or early next year,” he said.

“We decided to focus on the Merensky because of the excellent base metals prices. Why go deeper and deeper?” he added.

Jubilee could accelerate its second phase of drilling, which is currently planned for 10 holes, if the results are good, he said. It is also looking at possibly exploring its neighbouring Quartz Hill property to the northwest during this cycle.

The second phase drilling is meant to boost inferred resources into the higher confidence level of indicated as well as increase the inferred base.

Jubilee, which has a market capitalisation of 50m pounds, wants to have a resource base of four million ounces of the four platinum group elements (4PGE) in the indicated and inferred categories before it will pull the trigger on a bankable feasibility study in late 2008, Sarosi said.

There is an estimated 65m oz of 4PGE at the three properties it owns in the Tjate project, much of which is un-drilled. These ounces are not in the lowest confidence categeory of inferred resources.

Sarosi declined to give results from the first phase of drilling, saying the data is being assessed before being made public at the end of November.
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On the company’s website, data from two of the seven drill holes shows the Merensky was intersected at depths of around 720 metres, with reef thicknesses of 116cm and 61cm at grades of 8.91 and 3.83 grams/tonne of 4PGE respectively.

In 2008, the company will spend $1.7m on exploration and metallurgical test work as well as engineering and environmental studies.

“Once we start doing metallurgical tests and engineering studies it will be a good time to start talking about offtake agreements,” Sarosi said.

Jubilee is funding all the exploration work under its agreement with black-owned Tjate Platinum Corporation, which owns the rights to the properties. Jubilee bought a 25% stake in the company for R35m and has the option to lift that to 35% by spending R14m more on exploration.

Jubilee has other exploration projects on the Eastern Limb, the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, and in Madagascar. These are all early-stage exploration projects.