Sylvania and Jubilee hail test results

7th Dec 2009 08:43

The joint venture between platinum producers Sylvania Resources and Jubilee Platinum has announced successful trial results of Jubilee’s ConRoast DC smelting process.The companies said in a joint statement that the smelting of previously uneconomic low grade platinum group metal (PGM) concentrates at Jubilee’s ConRoast DC furnace at Mintek, South Africa had been a success.Around 99% of the PGMs were recovered during the tests. Furthermore, the high chrome content posed no risks to PGM recovery, safety or smelter performance.Further tests will be conducted and if these also prove positive then he proprietary ConRoast DC smelting process will be fed from PGM tailings dumps and surface resources held by Sylvania.‘This alliance with Jubilee allows Sylvania to develop a new low cost, low risk platinum business to sit alongside our successful tailings recovery operations,’ said Sylvania’s managing director, Terry McConnachie.‘This further affirms the application of the ConRoast process to a wide range of concentrates within the Platinum industry. Once proven on a larger scale, this should accelerate the transformation of Sylvania into a mid-tier platinum producer,’ claimed Colin Bird, chief executive officer of Jubilee.