KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – India’s Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) has drawn up plans to invest $1.3-billion over the next four years to ramp up production from its zinc and lead mines to 1.2-million tonnes a year from the current capacity of one-million tonnes a year.
HZL, part of the London-listed Vedanta Resources, would invest in its existing zinc and lead mines, Rampura Agucha, Rajpura Dariba, Sindesar Khurd and Zawar, which were all located in the central Indian desert province of Rajasthan, a company official said.
The HZL board had already approved the investments and work on mine expansion would start shortly, the official added.
The company had appointed an overseas mining technology consultancy firm to start work on the induction of new technology to debottleneck existing operations and the expansion of the mines would be taken up thereafter, he said.
The source said that HZL was also looking at acquiring new zinc and lead assets in India and overseas, but he declined to provide any details on mines identified by the company.
The company, as part of its expansion plans, would also be seeking to ramp up production of silver from the Sindesar Khurd mine.
The mine was reported to be rich in silver deposits and HZL’s investments would be to increase silver production to about 1 000 t/y from Sindesar Khurd up from 300 t/y at present.
HZL was extracting silver through lead smelting, but the company was putting in place processes to extract the precious metal from lead smelting to achieve the higher production target within the next four years, the official said.