Since the Los Santos mine is placed under planned care and maintenance in 2020, the Canadian mining company is conducting studies for the re-start of production, using flotation technology developed for the Sangdong Tungsten mine
Almonty to reopen Los Santos mine. (Credit: Almonty Industries Inc.)
Almonty Industries has unveiled its plans to reopen its previously producing Los Santos mine in Spain, which has been placed under planned care and maintenance since 2020.
Since then, the Canadian mining company has been conducting studies for the re-start of production from Los Santos, using flotation technology developed for the Sangdong Tungsten mine.
The re-opening is expected to be effective from the third quarter of this year, subject to the delivery times of some floatation plant items, which are readily available under normal conditions.
The company intends to retreat the tails to capture the more than 800,000MTUs of W03 contained within our sands and torta.
Almonty chairman, president and CEO Lewis Black said: “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.
“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.”
In September 2011, Almonty acquired the Los Santos mine, located around 50km from Salamanca in western Spain, and produces tungsten concentrate.
According to the recently published ORC report, the overall average grade of the tails is 0.14%, and the capital expenditure is expected to be more than $1.3m.
The company expects the reopening of Los Santos Mine will provide earnings like the earnings at its existing Panasqueira production mine in Portugal.
Almonty is engaged in mining, processing and shipping of tungsten concentrate from its Los Santos Mine in western Spain and its Panasqueira mine in Portugal.
It is also developing its Sangdong tungsten mine in Gangwon Province, South Korea and the Valtreixal tin/tungsten project in north-western Spain.
Lewis added: “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 will have a material effect on our current revenue and earnings as we continue to construct Sangdong.”