The La Parilla tin and tungsten mine, in Spain, is in the final stages of construction, with the mine, crusher and jig and mill plants commissioned and processing ore, while the new large-scale concentrator plant is set for start-up by September.

London-listed W Resources reported on Wednesday that allmineral Aufbereitungstechnik of Germany was advancing towards final acceptance testing and sign-off of the design capacity of the new 350 t/h jig and mill plant.

Ore fed to the jig and mill plant was being upgraded to higher grades and plant throughput had been tested at design capacity.

W said that upgrade pre-concentrate from the new jig and mill plant had been trucked to the existing La Parilla concentrator and processed through to final tungsten and tin concentrate.

Tungsten and tin concentrate stock reached 19.8 t in July, which was lower than an earlier guidance of 20 t WO₃ concentrate, reflecting the constraints on efficient pre-concentrate movement between plants and, in particular, owing to the limitations of the old concentrator plant, which was designed for tailings and not ore feed.

W stressed, however, that the old concentrator plant had provided critical information to enhance and fine-tune the performance of the new large-scale concentrator plant. For instance, W bought 72 spirals from the liquidators of Wolf Minerals, which was pursuing the Drakelands tungsten mine in the UK before going into liquidation last year, to expand the spirals’ processing capacity at La Parrilla at a limited cost.

“Production from the old concentrator plant was below expectations in July, but importantly, is greatly assisting with the enhancement of the new large-scale concentrator plant, which has been designed for full scale operation. We are close to finalising this process and the priority is that the commissioning is completed thoroughly. The team has delivered a fantastic mine, at low cost and we very much look forward to first production from the new concentrator plant in the September quarter,” said W chairperson Michael Masterman.

Meanwhile, in Portugal at Régua, development work continued to advance with road access construction under way and mining set to start in the December quarter. The Régua plant would use spirals purchased from the Wolf Minerals liquidator and equipment from the existing La Parrilla concentrator plant.

Golder Associates would complete a Joint Ore Reserve Committee- (Jorc-) compliant update of Régua's reserves and resource estimate in the December quarter.

At São Martinho, in Portugal, there had been a substantial delay in SRK Consulting completing the Jorc resource estimate and W said that the final evaluation was still being reviewed.

Meanwhile, W reported that it had signed an amendment agreement with BlackRock Financial Management to capitalise the last two interest payments of the BlackRock term loan, which equated to $1.29-million, which would be added to the final loan balance, further freeing up liquidity.