Jubilee Platinum plant progressing at Dilokong

Jubilee Platinum was making solid progress on the commissioning of its processing plant at the Dilokong Chrome Mine in South Africa, the company said on Monday, despite some delays.

The AIM-traded firm had previously announced it had begun commissioning of the processing plant in late February, in line with the requirements of the processing agreement between its subsidiary Pollux Investment Holdings, ASA Metals, and its associated mining and processing operations at Dilokong.

At the time, it meant Jubilee qualified for the incentives offered under the agreement for the early commissioning of the processing plant.

On Monday, Jubilee confirmed its commissioning and ramp-up had now reached 85% of design throughput, with the overall plant feed rate reaching an extrapolated 21,000 tons per month, compared to a design of 25,000 tons per month.

"The commissioning and ramp-up of operations suffered minor delays beyond the control of the company due to events relating to ASA Metals, but these have now been resolved satisfactorily," Jubilee's board said in a statement.

Jubilee said it remained focused on reaching full operational output during March, while also advancing the construction of the significantly larger platinum and chrome surface processing project at its Hernic operations, targeting a combined processing capacity of 80,000 tonnes of feed material per month.

At 1404 GMT, shares in Jubilee Platinum were up 7.39% to 3.5p.