Boliden had halted production at its Tara mine in Ireland
Swedish miner Boliden (STO: BOL) said on Wednesday it had halted production at its Tara mine in Ireland, Europe’s largest zinc mine, due to increased water flows into the operation.
Water began flooding the underground mine as a crew was drilling a pilot raisbore hole for a ventilation shaft.
Inflow volumes are exceeding the capacity of the dewatering infrastructure, the company said, adding it was unclear for how long production will be stopped.
In 2020, the Tara mine produced 127,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate and 14,000 tonnes of lead concentrate.
The news boosted zinc prices 2.2% to 3,420 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange. On Tuesday, the metal had recorded the biggest gain in a month as Glencore (LON: GLEN) announced it was preparing to shut down production in Italy.
Zinc production had already been hit by supply cuts announced by Trafigura, Nyrstar and Glencore, which sent prices up 13% in October.
Global zinc production is estimated at about 14 million tonnes this year, with about half of that expected to come from China, the world’s largest producer.
The metal is mainly used to galvanize steel or iron by applying a zinc coating to stop rusting. Galvanized steel is used in buildings, cars and electronics.
Source: mining.com
Tethyan Resource’s Kizevak Project of initial drill completed in Serbia
Kizevak project is the silver-zinc-lead project in Serbia. The initial drill program consisted of 11 diamond drill holes for a total of 1,867.5 metres, targeting the confirmation of historical drill and underground assay data. Tethyan Resource Corp. announced the successful completion of this initial drill program on the recently acquired license that comprises the central portion of the Kizevak project.
The results of drilling will be announced as they become available. In the meantime the Company is preparing for a larger drill programme in an effort to define a maiden resource estimate at Kizevak that is intended to commence in September following the anticipated acquisition of Tethyan by Adriatic Metals Plc. Additionally, Tethyan is currently conducting detailed soil sampling, geological mapping, and a ground magnetic survey over the Kizevak and Sastavci projects in order to further support drill planning and exploration of extensions to historically drilled mineralisation.
Source: tethyan-resources.com
Adriatic Metals will open lead-zinc-gold mine in Bosnia’s Vares in 2022
Adriatic Metals company has invested some 30 million marka ($17 million/15.3 million euro) in geological research and research on the amounts of lead, zinc, barite, silver, and gold in Vares, some 50 km north of Sarajevo.
The company has concession rights on a surface of 8.6 sq km.
This UK-based company plans to open a lead, zinc and gold mine in Vares in Bosnia in 2022 if it obtains the necessary permits according to plan, a senior company official said.
“The feasibility study which we work on at the moment shows that we will need some 350 workers,” Milos Bosnjakovic, the CEO of Adriatic Metals’s wholly-owned Bosnian unit Eastern Mining, said in an interview.
Since 2017, Eastern Mining has completed the drilling of some 33,000 metres with 150 bores.
Adriatic Metals said it has amended its concession agreement with Bosnia’s Zenica-Doboj Canton to include the rights to gold, silver and copper at its projects in the Balkan country.
Adriatic Metals is an ASX-listed zinc polymetallic explorer and developer via its 100% interest in the Vares project.
Zenica-Doboj Canton is one of ten cantons comprising Bosnia’s Federation entity. The Federation is one of two autonomous entities forming Bosnia and Herzegovina. The other one is the Serb Republic.
Source: seenews.com
Variscan Mines unearths zinc in Spain
-Variscan Mines is continuing to gather an understanding of its Spanish project
-Regional soil geochemistry has identified multiple zinc anomalies both across and next to historical zinc appearances
-There now exists the potential for soil sampling to be extended to highlight new zones of mineralisation
-Variscan’s share price is steady today with shares trading for 0.2 cents apiece
Variscan Mines is continuing to gather an understanding of the Novales-Udias project located in Cantabria, northern Spain.
The Novales-Udias Project is located in the Basque-Cantabrian Basin, 30 kilometres southwest from the regional capital, Santander.
The project is centred around the former producing Novales underground mine with a large surrounding are of exploration opportunities.
This includes zinc soil anomalies over two kilometres long, close to one kilometre wide and up to 17 per cent zinc.
“This work highlights the multiple, large geochemical anomalies identified at surface across the tenement area,” CEO Stewart Dickson said.
“In turn, this illustrates the potential scale of the opportunity in an area with a proved history of mining,” he added.
In July 2019, Variscan announced it had agreed to purchase two advanced zinc projects in Spain which include granted mining tenements located in established mining areas.
Variscan has now obtained access to the data and found that soil sampling has been an effective technique in highlighting anomalous zinc-lead areas.
Key findings include a high dispersal of zinc and lead over significant areas and a strong relationship between the soil geochemistry and the underlying dolomite (carbonate mineral).
Variscan will now use the results to plan for the next stage of development at the Novales-Udias Project.
With an extensive area of highly prospective exploration opportunities, the interpretation of this work will enable Variscan to advance the project quickly following shareholder approval.
In the meantime, this validation of historic geochemistry data represents the successful first stage of positioning Variscan to deliver the significant potential of the project.
Variscan’s share price is steady today with shares trading for 0.2 cents apiece in a $3.11 million market cap.
Source: themarketherald.com.au