Aim-listed AfriTin Mining reports that tin concentrate production at its flagship asset, the Uis mine, in Namibia, increased to 35 t in July, a 79% increase from June.
AfriTin is continuing to operate the Uis mine at full scale despite ongoing Covid-19 measures in Namibia and South Africa. All necessary steps to mitigate a possible outbreak have been taken and the company is pleased to report that there have been no confirmed cases of Covid-19 at the mine.
Tin concentrate production for the year to date totals 112 t and the miner has dispatched its sixth shipment of tin concentrate from the mine.
In terms of processing for Stage I of Phase 1, the miner 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.
The tin-in-concentrate grade has averaged 65%, representing a premium product largely free from deleterious elements.
AfriTin is achieving an average payability of 93%, referring to the percentage of the London Metals Exchange tin price realised for the tin contained in concentrate.
In addition, the offtake agreement with Thaisarco has been renewed for a further 12 months.
The miner also notes that initiatives to address bottlenecks in the processing plant circuits and expand production remain ongoing and on schedule. As a result of higher-than-anticipated fine material in the run-of-mine feed, improvements were required to rebalance material flows.
During the second quarter, improvement efforts have been focussed on the fines discard dewatering circuit, in particular the dewatering of grits (45 μ to 500 μ particles) and slimes (smaller than 45 μ particles). These modifications to the fines dewatering circuit are nearing completion and are expected to result in improved concentrator plant throughput.
AfriTin Mining CEO Anthony Viljoen says that, despite operational challenges related to Covid-19 and the production ramp-up during the first half of the year, the performance of the Uis operation is displaying improvement, which, together with the rebound in the tin price and the successful completion of AfriTin’s recent capital raising, provide a strong platform for the rest of this year.
“Building on the results of our improvement initiatives, we expect to further expand production at Uis, while simultaneously advancing our project studies towards the full implementation of Phase 1.”