Through the acquisition, it will take ownership and operational control of all of PlatCro's chrome beneficiation assets, including a plant, equipment and all rights to the existing chrome and platinum surface material estimated to exceed 1.8 million tonnes.

Jubilee will fund the purchase through secured project financing of US$6 million, a cash payment of $2.83 million and the issue of 52.5 million new Jubilee shares at a price of 2.5p per share.

It expected the transaction to be completed on January 7, 2019.

Jubilee said the acquisition would "significantly enhance its future earnings from PGMs and chrome" by increasing throughput and improving operational efficiencies, with PlatCro's chrome operations currently generating earnings of over $5.5 million per annum, excluding PGMs.

CEO Leon Coetzer said the integration of the assets with Jubilee's existing PlatCro PGM project was expected to achieve processing capacity of 65,000tpm of PGM-rich materials and 80,000tpm of chrome materials.  

He said the deal repositioned Jubilee in South Africa's chrome/platinum arena, with its integrated processing hub offering "leading processing access to the various independent mines free of the capital and regulatory burden associated with own build".

The market did not react well to the news, with Jubilee's shares down 4.26% Monday morning to R0.45 (US0.03c) per share.