Jubilee Metals Group plc (LON:JLP) Chief Executive Officer Leon Coetzer caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss half year results, exceptional growth for the company and what shareholders look forward to in the short term.
Q1: Leon, with the release of half year results this morning, what would you highlight as the standout numbers from the results?
A1: I believe it’s another set of strong results that Jubilee Metals has delivered, we informed our shareholders that the calendar year of 2020 will be a year of delivery on our South African operations and I think the numbers reflect that.
So, if you just pick a few numbers, of course, for us, one of the most important numbers would be earnings where we have shown a tremendous growth in earnings to reach nearly £51 million for this six month period, backed by strong revenue growth.
What is really nice for us is that these revenue and earnings growth isn’t just supported by strong metal prices in the PGM operations but also in growth in the PGM operations where we’ve reached 28,000 ounces for the six month period.
So, the numbers really show not only strong operational performance but also a market that is favouring PGM metal prices at the moment.
Q2: Now, the numbers clearly indicate yet another period of exceptional growth for the company. Do you think this can be sustained or have we reached a plateau for the company?
A2: Interesting question. Of course, we’ve been very fortunate in that we’ve had nearly six half year periods in a row now of constant double digit growth and yes, our South African operations has reached that point where it now can demonstrate what is its capabilities at current operating levels, what its earnings and revenue can look like.
Of course, already, as we indicate in our announcement, that our chrome operations are currently completing the construction of yet another very large chrome facility and in fact, components of that is already in commissioning and coming into operation. We expect the full facility to be in full operation during the month of April, which means another set of chrome product is added in the South African business, it also means that we create another feed stream of PGMs to our PGM facility.
So, certainly we can expect further growth in that South African business, but more importantly is the Zambian copper and cobalt strategy that is coming into operation. Our first project, which we called Project Rowan, which is our copper concentrator under construction in Zambia, we expect in the next two weeks to start delivering its first intermediate products to our Sable refinery. We look forward to a very rapid ramp up of copper production coming through from our copper business which again would add to our expected income into the future.
So, we’ve certainly have reached a tremendous plateau in our South African business with some further growth expected but we can look forward to a tremendous growth coming through our Zambian operations. So, we certainly, as a company, have not reached a plateau yet.
Q3: Jubilee Metals seems to have a lot on his plate for the coming year, what can shareholders look forward to in the short term?
A3: Well, it seems like we always tend to say the same thing, it’s another year of delivery for the company.
The immediate is, of course, the completion of our new chrome operating facility or beneficiation facility to do full operation, 80,000 tons per month facility in the coming month, followed by the implementation and commissioning of our new copper concentrated, Project Rowan coming into operation. Of course, we announced the expansion of our Inyoni PGM plant, also being undertaken during the current half year period.
So, shareholders certainly can look forward to a lot of news flow around these expansions and new facilities coming into operation and adding to the operational profile.
