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Impala expansion positive for Jubilee Pt Posted: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 [miningmx.com] -- PLANS by Impala Platinum to consider expanding its 130,000 oz/year Marula platinum mine in the eastern Bushveld is potentially good news for Jubilee Platinum, a junior mining company listed in London and on the JSE in Johannesburg. Jubilee is developing the Tjate project that butts on to Marula’s north-western boundary. Given the way miners traditionally think about such things it might make sense for Impala to buy or joint venture Jubilee’s Tjate to provide it with more collective ounces, mining flexibility and longer life of mine. Impala Platinum CEO David Brown replied “It’s a value game” when asked to assess the probability of dealing with Jubilee. “We’ve looked at the prospect but we’re unlikely to get it in a short period of time.” Much will depend on Jubilee’s updated view concerning its co-operation with partners. It said in June that Tjate would cost $400m (R2.9bn) to develop – that’s currently about double Jubilee’s market capitalisation. A scoping study suggested it could produce 262,000 oz/year. Coupled with Impala’s expanded Marula mine that would result in combined output of just over 500,000 oz/year of platinum group metals. Jubilee Platinum CEO Colin Bird acknowledges financing the project might be done through a joint venture. “We’re near Twickenham (Anglo Platinum’s project) and down a dip of Impala. It’s one helluva address.” He wasn't immediately available for an update on the possibility of joint venturing the project. Imperialism in South Africa’s platinum industry is all the rage after Lonmin successfully bid $450m for AfriOre’s Akanani platinum prospect and Impala itself bid $600m in buying control of African Platinum. But you can understand why Brown can afford to take a long-term view of Jubilee, since Impala already has a raft of capital projects on its books to keep it busy. It’s spending R25bn over the next few years, of which half will be maintaining the 1.1 million oz to 1.2 million oz production profile at its Rustenburg section. A further R3bn will be spent expanding Marula (and a further R700m in extending its UG2 reef); R3bn on developing the Leeuwkop prospect, which was the asset Afplats owned; R3bn on Zimplats and R3bn on extra smelting capacity to tackle all the additional ore generated by its growth strategy of 2.3 million oz/year by 2010 and 2.5 million oz/year by 2013. Click Here to subscribe to our daily newsletter
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