TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-listed Trevali Mining has started crushing mill feed at its Santander mine zinc/lead/silver operations in Peru, signalling imminent zinc and lead/silver concentrate production.
Trevali on Monday said operations had started filling the fine mill feed bin and that it expected to ship the first metals in July.
The company also said that underground development continued to progress "well”, with eight levels currently developed on the Magistral North and Magistral Central deposits. Based on current development rates, the ninth level, into the Magistral South deposit was expected to be in place in mid-June.
There were about 130 000 t of mineralised material currently available to feed the mill. This volume of material would provide about three-months of mill feed during the production ramp-up period to full nameplate mill processing capacity of 2 000 t/d.
As at July 31, 2012, the total indicated mineral resource estimate for Magistral North, Central-South and Puajanca South, using a 3% zinc equivalent cutoff grade, was 6.264-million tons containing 43 g/t silver, 1.3% lead, 3.62% zinc and 0.07% copper.
The total inferred mineral resource estimate, using a 3.0% zinc equivalent cutoff grade, was 13.845-million tons containing 21 g/t silver, 0.4% lead, 4.62% zinc and 0.11% copper.