Jubilee Metals Shares Jump on Zambia Waste Project Bids

Jubilee Metals Group (LON: JLP), the AIM- and Altx-listed copper producer with operations in Zambia, said yesterday it had received two binding offers for the outright sale of its Large Waste Project (LWP), a Zambian tailings and waste-rock project it holds rights to process for copper. The shares jumped on the news.

Jubilee shares closed yesterday at 2.79p, up 11.6% from Friday’s close of 2.50p. That leaves the stock well below its 52-week high of 5.20p but above its 52-week low of 2.2025p.

The RNS, published yesterday morning, said the binding offers value the LWP at a substantial premium to the price Jubilee originally paid for exclusive rights to the project. A deposit is due by 27 August, after which the successful purchaser has up to 90 days for due diligence, with definitive agreements to follow within 10 days and the balance payable in instalments over as long as three years.

Combined with proceeds already banked from Jubilee’s earlier disposal of its South African operations, the LWP sale is expected to take total cash inflows close to $100 million. Rather than fund the LWP itself as a capital-intensive greenfield project, Jubilee plans to redeploy that cash into its existing, already-producing Molefe Mine, its Zambian copper mine and processing hub.

Chief executive Leon Coetzer said the deal represents “an important evolution of Jubilee’s copper strategy and rationalising of its capital investment to prioritise leveraging off our established operating footprint in Zambia.” He added that the plan is to turn Molefe into “an integrated copper mining and processing hub”, delivering a lower-risk, lower-capital route to growth.

The transaction is not yet finalised. Neither bidder has been named, and Jubilee still has to select a preferred purchaser and agree definitive terms, expected within roughly two weeks of yesterday’s announcement, before the premium priced into the rally is secured.