Jubilee Metals is a diversified metals producer with a focus on extracting value from marginal but easily accessible resources such as mine waste rather than on conventional mining. It has established platinum group metals (PGMs) and chrome operations in South Africa alongside a burgeoning copper business in Zambia.
Its small size allows Jubilee to follow an opportunistic approach to acquiring feedstock for its processing plants. This includes open-pit mining, whether independently done or in partnership with others, buying waste material and run-of-mine ore from others, or entering into tolling agreements for metal to be processed at a fixed margin. This model removes some of the risks inherent in traditional mining, such as unstable geological conditions or finite life-of-mine limits.
Each procurement method has its own risk and return profile. While tolling involves nothing more than a fixed service fee, buy-ins and own-produced material bring exposure to the market prices of the underlying commodities. This is why chrome profits, for example, which contain a major tolling component, showed a weaker than expected correlation with the chrome price spike in recent years. Conversely, tolling offers the benefit of less earnings volatility.
Traditionally, PGMs have been the primary money-spinner for Jubilee, but a sustained downturn in PGM prices has shifted the financial burden onto its chrome operations, which last year became the main cash cow. This trend is expected to continue in the short term despite a recent 25% drop in chrome ore prices, as the lower sales value per unit is offset by 35% growth in chrome production.
Looking further ahead, if there’s no rebound in PGM prices, Jubilee Metals’ success will increasingly hinge on its copper ventures in Zambia. Though the demand for PGMs is clouded by the electric vehicle revolution’s effect of reducing the need for autocatalysts, copper’s fundamental outlook remains robust. The global pivot to renewable energy, including solar and wind power, coupled with extensive infrastructure projects and the electrification of transportation, are set to drive copper demand. Meanwhile, expected supply constraints suggest that copper prices could firm further.
Of course, doing business in the rest of Africa is like driving a car on a road full of potholes, so vigilance is required when assessing the Zambian opportunity. Just ask gemstone miner Gemfields, whose emerald mining operations in Zambia were recently hit by a 15% export duty as the government milks soft targets in an effort to shore up its finances. Furthermore, proposed new mining laws have stoked fears that the government might try to gain material stakes in exploration areas for little compensation.
It’s unlikely that the copper sector will suffer the same fate as gemstones — it’s a strategic focus area for Zambia that requires major foreign investment, and high-profile foreign copper operations such as the Bill Gates-backed KoBold Metals hold enough sway to push back against government opportunism. But this development underscores the risk of operating in frontier markets.
Of course, doing business in the rest of Africa is like driving a car on a road full of potholes, so vigilance is required
A very real Zambian pothole for Jubilee has been electricity supply; the company’s copper production was constrained by frequent national grid blackouts last year. This led to output falling short of targets, totalling 1,454t against a revised target of 1,800t for the first half of its 2025 financial year. The major issue was at the Roan plant, while the Sable refinery, which benefited from closer proximity to the power producer, was less affected. Jubilee’s open-pit copper mining operations, Munkoyo and Project G, continued largely uninterrupted, as their power demands are relatively small.
To address the power constraints, Jubilee has entered into an additional power supply agreement with a new broad-based provider that commenced on January 20. This agreement aims to secure a power base from multiple sources, reducing dependency on a single supply source and mitigating the impact of local power network limitations.
Jubilee’s long-term copper forecast is for 25,000t production a year, with 14,000t output capacity at the Sable refinery (now being upgraded to 16,000t) and 13,000t at the Roan operations. At a market price of $9,000 a ton and a rand-dollar exchange rate of 18, this translates into turnover of about R4bn a year. Bear in mind, though, that margins are smaller than in traditional copper mining, especially if finance costs for third-party feedstock is included.
Positively, Jubilee’s operations are seen as environmentally friendly. Not only do its processing plants have a low carbon footprint, they reduce the need for new mining and help to rehabilitate legacy mining sites by processing waste and cleaning up historical mining pollution.
As PGMs provided roughly three-quarters of profits historically, the current depressed PGM prices will cause a slump in company earnings until copper production ramps up. As such, the company looks expensive on a near-term earnings multiple. Ultimately, with a market cap of just more than R3bn at the time of writing, the valuation depends on the copper story if there’s no PGM recovery. Jubilee’s proven success in chrome and PGM processing, consistently surpassing production growth targets, bodes well for future copper output. But achieving decent margins holds the key.
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