Carangas Project is a precious and base metal exploration‐stage property located in Oruro Department, Bolivia. The project is being developed by Canadian exploration and development company New Pacific Metals.
In April 2021, New Pacific Metals signed a Mining Associate Contract with a private Bolivian corporation Mineral Granville.
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Under the contract, the Canadian firm agreed to cover all expenditures and receive 98% of operational profits after Carangas moves to operations. The 30-year agreement includes an additional 15-year extension option.
New Pacific Metals announced the results of the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for the Carangas project in October 2024.
The PEA predicted 16-year life of mine (LOM) excluding two years of pre-production. It estimates production of around 106 million oz (Moz) of payable silver, 620 million pounds (Mlbs) of payable zinc and 382 Mlbs of payable lead.
Initial capital costs were estimated to be $324m. The polymetallic mine is also expected to create around 500 direct permanent jobs.
New Pacific is working on securing the necessary permits for the project. The feasibility study of Carangas project is expected to take 12-18 months.
It will also work to enter into a mine development agreement with the local community to convert the exploration licence into a mining licence.
The company expects to reach this position not earlier than the second half of 2025.
Carangas Project Location
The Carangas Property is located in western Bolivia in the South America Epithermal-Porphyry Belt, around 190km southwest of Oruro City.
The project includes three Exploration Licenses (Granville I, Granville II and Colapso) across an area of 40.75 square kilometres.
Geology and Mineralisation
The Carangas Project lies within the South American Epithermal-Porphyry Belt, within a volcanic caldera system.
The caldera system of Tertiary age lies over a basement comprising a moderately deformed Triassic-Lower Jurassic crystalline bedrock.
Carangas caldera exhibits a circular structure with a central dome of approximately 20km in diameter. The central dome hosts mineralisation in the ring zone.
The Carangas deposit is situated at the southwest corner of the Carangas basin, and geomorphologically is consists of two prominent hills- West Dome and the East Dome, and a fluvial valley in the middle.
Silver-lead-zinc mineralised vein structures primarily move towards a WestNorthwest direction with steep dips. At depth, the lower portion of mineralisation system is dominated by gold plus minor amount of silver and copper.
Mineralisation is divided into three separate zones. The Upper Silver Zone is near surface and contains silver with moderate amount of lead and zinc.
The underlying Middle Zinc Zone is dominated by zinc, and also contains silver and lead. The Lower Gold Zone is dominated by gold, with small amounts of silver, copper, and zinc.
Carangas Project Mineral Resources Estimate
In September 2023, New Pacific Metals reported the maiden for Carangas polymetallic deposit.
The project includes total indicated mineral resources of 214.9 million tonnes (Mt) containing 205.3 million ounces (Mozs) of silver (Ag), 1,588.2 thousand ounces (Kozs) of gold (Au), 1,444.9 million pounds (Mlbs) of lead (Pb), 2,653.7 Mlbs of zinc (Zn), and 112.6 Mlbs of copper (Cu).
Collectively, the figures stand at 559.8 Mozs silver equivalent (AgEq).
The estimates also include total inferred mineral resources of 45Mt containing 47.7 Mozs of Ag, 217.7 Kozs of Au, 297.9 Mlbs of Pb, 533.7 Mlbs of Zn, and 16.8 Mlbs of Cu; or collectively 109.8 Mozs AgEq.
Mining and Processing
Carangas Project is expected to be mined using a conventional open pit technique.
The process will involve the use of drilling and blasting methods. Hydraulic excavators will be deployed for loading and the mined ore will be hauled by off-highway rear dump haul trucks.
Open-pit mining will start in the first year of construction, with production expected to be 15Mt per year.
Around 19Mt of waste and oxide material will also be mined. A part of the oxides and lower grade resources recovered during the initial years will be stockpiled and processed over LOM.
According to the PEA, the mill feed will be transported to the primary crusher or a run-of-mine (ROM) stockpile. Waste rock will be disposed in waste storage facilities.
Overall, around 176Mt of material (mineralised material and waste) will be mined from the open pit by Year 13 of milling operations. Subsequently, Years 14-17 will be dedicated to processing stockpiles.
New Pacific Metals plans to hire a contractor with current operations in Bolivia for mining operations.
The processing plant will process 4Mt of mineralised material per year. The facility will leverage conventional comminution circuits and selective sequential flotation to deliver a lead/silver concentrate and a zinc/silver concentrate.
The process will include primary crusher, a SAG-Ball milling circuit (SABC) and sequential sulphide flotation to separate silver/lead and zinc.
Tailings generated from the processing will be thickened and transported to a conventional storage facility.
Contractors Involved
The maiden mineral resource estimate for the Carangas polymetallic deposit was completed by RPMGlobal (Canada).
RPMGlobal, which specialises in providing enterprise technology, advisory and training to the mining industry, also prepared the PEA report for the project. Moose Mountain Technical Services (mining), and JJ Metallurgical Services (Metallurgy) were associated with the preparation of PEA.
