Date: Dec 12, 2018
The Jubilee Metals portfolio is set to expand into new jurisdictions
The palladium price has been on a tear of late, even briefly surpassing even gold as the world’s most valuable metal by ounce.
The price has since dropped away slightly, but even so this strength gives the lie to the idea that the days of generating real upside from platinum group metals are over.
To be sure, the platinum price has been weak for a long time now, but companies like Jubilee Metals Group PLC (LON:JLP) which have a high component of palladium production are enjoying a significant earnings uplift.
“Around 40% of what we make is palladium,” says Jubilee’s chief executive Leon Coetzer. “It’s a massive component of our earnings.”
Jubilee has in recent years created a nice line for itself in extracting platinum group metals from old waste dumps in South Africa. In particular, feed is provided by the Hernic and DCM mines, where the primary product is chrome and the processing of PGMs has often had a secondary priority.
Jubilee extracts the PGMs from the waste dumps using an in-house expertise that has been many long years in the making, and which is now paying off big time. All told, in the most recent quarter for which figures are available, Jubilee was able to generate revenues of almost £3.5mln from the extraction of palladium, platinum and chrome from dumps at Hernic alone.
