TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Vanadium producer Largo Resources this week said despite minor challenges, output at its Maracas Menchen mine, in Brazil, was gathering pace, with the project operating at between 45% and 65% of capacity.
Largo started vanadium production in August and output rates rose steadily up to November, when a mechanical issue relating to a pan conveyor at the leaching system slowed momentum.
The mechanical issue was exacerbated by several days of exceptionally high rainfall, which also temporarily impacted production rates. As a result, production for November remained relatively flat compared with October.
Since September, the operation had shipped about 1.6-million pounds of vanadium pentoxide and the company expected weekly deliveries to continue unfettered.
“Over the past several months we have made significant headway with respect to increasing recoveries and efficiencies of production at the project. Currently, we are working to increase availability of each system and are hopeful to surpass the 20 t/d level in the near term,” Largo president and CEO Mark Brennan said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Maracas Menchen deposit was regarded as the richest, highest-grade vanadium deposit in the world.
The TSX-V-listed company expected to capture 7.5% of the global vanadium market within a year and believed that there was ample upside to swell output through a series of expansions in the coming years, as demand and market conditions warranted.