Thalanga delivers first concentrates

11th October 2017 By: Esmarie Iannucci - Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor: Australasia

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Thalanga zinc project, in Queensland, has delivered its first zinc concentrate one month after the start of processing.

ASX-listed Red River Resources on Wednesday told shareholders that the first two loads of zinc concentrates, amounting to some 150 t, left site on Tuesday for delivery to a storage facility in Townsville.

The concentrate will be sold to Trafigura under an existing offtake agreement.

“It is very pleasing to have achieved our first deliveries of zinc concentrate from Thalanga after commencing production at the project last month, ahead of schedule and under budget,” said Red River MD Mel Palancian.

“Red River has no debt and a cash balance of A$15.6-million at the end of September, so our ability to generate an income from concentrate will help fund exploration across our portfolio as we aim to find the next generation of deposits in the Mt Windsor Belt and further increase our resource inventory.”

The Thalanga project is expected to produce an average 21 400 t/y of zinc, 3 600 t/y of copper, 5 000 t/y of lead, 2 000 oz/y of gold and 370 000 oz/y of silver in concentrate over an initial five-year mine life.

The offtake agreement with Trafigura accounted for 122 000 t of zinc concentrate and 27 400 t of lead concentrate, with pricing to be determined by metal prices on the London Metal Exchange at the time of shipment.