Jubilee sees opportunity at South Australia copper mine

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South African mine-to-metals specialist Jubilee Platinum will jointly explore and develop Resilience Mining Australia’s (RMA’s) Leigh Creek copper mine (LCCM) and other copper tenements collectively owned or held by LCCM, in South Australia.

The companies have entered a binding and exclusive term sheet, which will result in Jubilee acquiring an initial 20% of LCCM for A$500 000.

LCCM was mothballed five years ago and RMA has spent 18 months and more than $1-million on developing the project, after buying it from Phoenix Metals.

After acquiring the initial 20%, Jubilee will acquire a further 20% shareholding in LCCM by spending A$1-million towards achieving commercial production.

Jubilee will have the right to acquire up to 100% of LCCM in staged considerations, totalling A$4.5-million in cash, A$2.5-million in secured loans and A$1-million in subscription payments. The staged considerations are linked to key project and copper production milestones and the transaction is dependent on the successful outcome of a due diligence by Jubilee.

Jubilee CEO Leon Coetzer said the company carefully selected its first international project based on risk and reward.

“This targeted copper project demonstrates Jubilee’s ability and focus to drive its growth [beyond a specific] country or specific metal; [it] also offers an exciting opportunity to build on in Australia.”

The LCCM mineral inventory is estimated to be around 35 000 t of contained copper with identified exploration targets of 103 000 t of contained copper on the tenure, close by and regionally.

“We have selected the copper arena on the back of the strong underlying fundamentals for copper in the short to medium term. We are looking forward to executing this project and building on our established Australian presence by seeking further such opportunities,” said Coetzer.

Jubilee and RMA will develop the project in phases, with the first phase aimed at reaching commercial production of first copper tonnes from processing of existing surface material.

The second phase will target commercial production to 3 000 t of copper sales and then 9 000 t of copper sales.