Consolidated Zinc Limited (ASX:CZL) has commenced commissioning of the crushing circuit at its wholly owned Plomosas Plant in Mexico.
The mill and wet end of the plant will be commissioned from March 13, 2021 and, as CZL has over two years’ experience in optimising processing of Plomosas plant feeds, a short commissioning period is expected.
Managing director, Brad Marwood, said the extreme cold weather which severely impacted Texas in February also directly and indirectly impacted Chihuahua State, northern Mexico and operations at the Plomosas mine. An estimated 14 days of progress on the tailings dam construction were lost due to road closures, supply issues and extreme cold. Lights have been installed so that the earthworks and plastic liner laying can proceed around the clock to meet the March deadline for completion.
An independent expert is scheduled to inspect the mill installation on March 13, 2021, following which 22 tonnes of ball will be installed, and the mill commissioned through the third week of March. The fine ore bin is filled with barite ore. This ore will be used to commission the mill. The preconditioning tanks, flotation circuit will be sequentially commissioned in the second half of March.
The Aldama plant continued to operate in January and February 2021 at similar rates to the Q4, 2020. The Company proposes to run both Aldama and Plomosas plants in Q2 2021 to reduce stockpiles and increase revenue while allowing time for orderly commissioning for the Plomosas plant.
A new specialised haul truck has been purchased for Plomosas to increase ore haulage rates and, once the underground stockpiles are at the surface, the special purpose haul truck will be used to exploit the high- grade sulphide ore located at the Level 7 Carola South stope with Zinc equivalent grade exceeding 25% Zinc.
We are very pleased with the progress made to date commissioning the Plomosas plant,” Mr Marwood said.
“Our modelling indicates a bright future for CZL at Plomosas and the increased cashflow from running the Plomosas and Aldama plants during Q2 2021 should allow CZL to accelerate the expansion of the Plomosas plant to 200 tonnes per day during 2021.
“The size of operations in production matters, as does direct control of the processes, and the steps taken in the last few months.”
Consolidated Zinc owns 100% of the historic Plomosas Mine, located 120km from Chihuahua City, Chihuahua State. Historical mining at Plomosas between 1945 and 1974 extracted over two million tonnes of ore grading 22% Zn+Pb and over 80g/t Ag. Only small-scale mining continued to the present day and the mineralised zones remain open at depth and along strike.
