Johannesburg — TWO junior precious metals companies, Jubilee Platinum and Simmer & Jack, had a shakeup of their boards yesterday.

Colin Bird, long-time CEO of platinum exploration and technology group Jubilee Platinum , handed over the reins to Leon Coetzer, who has been driving hard on a technology designed to treat platinum concentrate with high chrome levels.

Jubilee has a memorandum of understanding with Northam to create a joint venture to build and operate a commercial-scale ConRoast smelter to treat concentrate from Northam's new Booysendal project. ConRoast is an important development in the platinum sector, which is increasingly mining more of the chrome-bearing UG2 reef.

Traditional smelters struggle to cope with high chrome concentrates. This technology takes it in its stride, producing a platinum-bearing iron alloy.

Jubilee is testing a refining process to tag onto the back of its ConRoast smelter to extract the iron from the alloy as well as nickel and cobalt to produce a high-grade platinum product.

Mr Bird takes up the role of nonexecutive chairman from Sunday. The other change will be the appointment of Bernard Swanepoel as nonexecutive chairman of junior gold producer Simmers after its annual general meeting on September 10.

Mr Swanepoel, the former CEO of Harmony Gold, was deputy chairman of Simmers, which recently completed a R600m deal to buy the Tau Lekoa mine from AngloGold Ashanti.

Mr Swanepoel is CEO of Village Main Reef Gold Mining Company, which has taken a majority stake in Lesego Platinum and its exploration project near the Phosiri Dome. Mr Swanepoel replaces Vusi Khanyile.