PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Dual-listed Almonty Industries on Monday flagged plans to reopen its Los Santos tungsten mine, in Spain.
The project was placed on care and maintenance in 2020, and since then, the TSX- and ASX-listed Almonty has been undertaking studies into restarting production at the mine via the retreating of tailings using the company’s flotation technology.
“We have spent a number of years refining our process for the Sangdong tungsten mine with the use of our pilot plant. What became apparent was the technology that we had developed that sat alongside the traditional flotation techniques could be adapted to our other sites, especially in dealing with finer material which is normally the inhibitor to treating tails commercially,” said Almonty chairperson, president and CEO Lewis Black.
“We have now successfully established that our Sangdong process can commercially treat the Los Santos tails, and with a minimal amount of adjustment to the already existing flotation circuit at Los Santos, we will now begin to plan for bringing the Los Santos mine back into production.
“This re-opening will not distract us from the build in South Korea, as all key members of Los Santos are still in place. We expect this plan, once enacted, to generate similar earnings to our existing Panasqueira production mine in Portugal and therefore that it will have a material effect on our current revenue and earnings as we continue to construct Sangdong,” said Black.
The re-opening is expected to take place in the third quarter of this year, depending on the delivery time of some flotation plant items, Black said.
The company intends to retreat the tails to capture the more than 800 000 t of tungsten contained within the sands and torta. The project is expected to require a capital expenditure of less than $1.3-million.