Aim-listed AfriTin Mining has built on production gains made during June and July, with its production in August increasing to 37.5 t of tin concentrate.
This follows the completion of modifications at the company’s fines dewatering circuit, at the Uis mine’s processing plant, in Namibia, to address bottlenecks.
The modifications enabled more fines material in the run-of-mine feed, as well as rebalanced materials flows and expanded capacity related to the dewatering of grits and slimes.
These improvements will lead to further increased concentrator plant throughput from September onwards.
During August, four days of maintenance shutdown was necessary to effect the modifications. Nonetheless, the company managed to increase tin concentrate production to 37.5 t, compared with 35.3 t produced in July, 19.7 t produced in June and 11.2 t produced in May.
Year-to-date tin concentrate production totals 150 t, with regular shipments from Walvis Bay having continued despite ongoing Covid-19 restrictions in Namibia and South Africa.
AfriTin is targeting the processing of 45 000 t of ore a month, at a rate of 80 t/h, for the production of 60 t of tin concentrate a month by the end of this year.
With the main bottlenecks addressed, the company will now focus on improving the availability and use of the plant to support the remainder of the production ramp-up.
This includes additional instrumentation and controls, optimisation of piping and valving configurations, refining the density control in the dense medium separation circuits and installing an on-site laboratory.