3rd Oct 2018 11:33
LONDON (Alliance News) - Premier African Minerals Ltd said Wednesday it has completed nine drilling holes at its 49% owned RHA tungsten mine in Zimbabwe and returned a technical and economic assessment of the mine to decide how to bring it back into production.
Premier African Minerals intersected a hole at the mine at 1.86 metres of 2.39 kilograms per ton tungsten oxide and 44.8 kilograms per ton over 0.29 metres.
The miner is hoping to "expand and as well increase the resource confidence" at the mine. To date, nine holes have been drilled totalling 941 metres.
The company expects to complete the drilling programme by the end of October.
In a separate announcement, Premier African said it has completed a technical and economic study at the RHA mine.
The study showed underground production could achieve a rate of 6,000 to 7,000 tonnes per month or underground and open pit mining at a production rate of 6,000 tons per month and 34,000 tons from the open pit, with a plant processing rate of 40,000 tons per months.
The study was undertaken to evaluate the options for re-establishing production at the mine. It was limited to ore blocks in the underground area nearing completion of development at the time of shutdown of RHA in January 2018.
Premier said it would only consider the first option as a basis for re-commencing production at the mine.
Chief Executive Officer George Roach said: "The preliminary internal assay results from RHADD34 indicate multiple mineralised load structures with wolframite at commercial grades and visible copper mineralisation in the form of chalcopyrite co-existent in the same ore bodies as the wolframite. Wolframite concentrates previously produced at RHA have always contained copper, but no attempt was made to separately recover any copper, and whilst the production of any potential by- product is speculative at this time, the visibly pervasive presence needs a fuller investigation, and independent assay.
He added: "This technical and economic assessment of RHA demonstrates a technically viable restart basis for the project. Whilst we have faced challenges in the past at RHA, we believe that we have a solid plan to de-bottleneck the underground operation and meet the mine run rates to enable RHA to operate profitably. We have commenced the underground drilling programme and so far, have intersected visual mineralisation over excellent drill widths and we look forward to reporting the results when we receive assays."
Shares in Premier African Minerals were down 6.3% Wednesday at 0.15 pence each.
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