Jubilee’s Sable Refinery expects to start commercial production of copper and cobalt in August 2022.

In June 2022, the Sable Refinery entered commission under the new ownership of Jubilee Metals Group. The refinery was acquired from Glencore in 2019 and initially built to process zinc but was converted into a cobalt leaching facility for economic advantages. Jubilee plans on processing Cu-Co concentrate from its Project Roan. The concentrate is sourced from Zambia’s Kitwe Cu-Co Tailings with a mineral resource of 300Mt, however, Jubilee has permission to only process 2Mt of copper at run-of-mine (ROM). At full capacity, the project will have an expected refined capacity of 12,000tpy copper and 1,200tpy cobalt from the Sable Refinery.

Project Roan has a sizable supply of copper and cobalt available to achieve production targets, but the project’s concentrator is currently operating at a 65% design capacity and its refined production is dependent on the feed grade. Therefore, production may be unpredictable. Overall Zambia may see significant developments in its copper and cobalt supply in projects are able to enter production. This includes the country’s announcement to resume cobalt production from its Mopani Copper Mines in May 2022 and Jubilee’s upcoming Kitwe Cu-Co Tailings projects - Project Lech, Project Elephant and Northern Refinery.