JSE- and TSX-V-listed Alphamin Resources completed plant construction activities at its Bisie tin project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during the second quarter.
The company on Friday said it expects to achieve commercial production at Bisie during the remainder of the third quarter.
Alphamin explained that processing recoveries had increased after the end of the second quarter, owing to improved equipment availability, operator upskilling and consistency to feed material to the plant.
The company identified losses in the circuit and made process flow changes to reduce the losses of tin to the fine and ultrafine flow streams.
Resultantly, the company achieved an overall recovery of 65% during August, compared with design levels of 72%.
Tin production was 636 t for the quarter ended June 30, and monthly production of 672 t and 809 t of tin was achieved in July and August, respectively.
“Maintaining the volume of material mined remains under pressure as we await delivery of a third drill rig and underground loader in the fourth quarter of the year.
“The operational team is focusing on maintaining the capital development required to establish the next set of stopes on levels five and seven. The level five elevation has been reached and ventilation ways and services must be established for stoping to start later in the third quarter.
“Stoping operations on level seven are required to start in the first quarter of 2020 and the decline is advancing towards level six,” Alphamin noted.
The company expects to produce contained tin production of between 4 000 t and 4 500 t for the six months to December 31, with run-of-mine grades averaging about 5% and overall plant recoveries in the range of between 55% and 70%.