Zinc And Lead Production In Mexico
Consolidated Zinc Limited (ASX:CZL) has commenced production of zinc and lead concentrates at the newly refurbished Plomosas plant in Mexico.
“The establishment of our own processing facility has been a long time coming. I believe this is the final step to the Plomosas mine producing high quality concentrates, consistently and cost effectively,” Managing Director, Brad Marwood, said.
“With commissioning of the wholly owned processing plant, we now have full control over both the mining and processing functions for the first time. I am very pleased with the outstanding efforts of all CZL personnel who worked to make this opportunity a reality.
“During the next six months we will focus on maximising returns in what appears to be a stronger cycle for zinc and lead while metal demands are seeing concentrate treatment charges return to historically average levels, some 47% less than the prior year.”
The company completed an equity raising in October 2020 to fund the refurbishment of the Plomosas concentrator including the purchase of a ball mill with capacity of up to 300 tonnes per day (tpd). The refurbishment has been designed to initially operate at 100 tpd. There is capacity to upgrade the process to 200 tpd by the end of the year.
The project was completed within the projected cost of US$1.36M, including the purchase of more float cells that will facilitate increased recovery or increased throughput.
The refurbishment of the Plomosas plant was completed in five months, six weeks behind our internal target completion date due to the impacts of a severe second wave of COVID-19 and extreme winter weather conditions across Texas and Chihuahua states which cut power supply, closed roads and placed limitations on activities.
The Plomosas Tailings Dam was one of the first designs approved under the new Mexican laws, following tailings dam failures in Mexico and Brazil that prompted the local regulators to rework their legislative framework for storage facilities. The
Plomosas tailings dam is fully lined with under drainage system and suitable systems for water reclaim. The tailings dam has been designed to be built in two stages, the completed stage one is sufficient for 18 months operations. Stage two storage has been designed to store 700,000 tonnes (nine years).
The Aldama plant has continued to produce concentrates from the Plomosas mine ore and is planned to continue processing in addition to the Plomosas plant, until the run-of-mine inventory levels are normalised.
