Trevali Mining’s Caribou zinc mine achieves commercial production
Trevali's wholly-owned Caribou Mine and Mill Complex consists of a developed underground mine with significant resources of zinc-lead-silver-copper-gold, a fully permitted 3,000-tonne-per-day processing mill, flotation recovery plant, metallurgical and geochemical laboratories, and a tailings treatment facility, all located approximately 50-km west of Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada.
Trevali Mining Corp. [TV-TSX; TREVF-OTCQX; TV-LMA; 4T1 FFT] announced on July 7, that it has achieved commercial production at its Caribou zinc mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp of northern New Brunswick. Following a successful commissioning period, Caribou is now operating consistently and as demonstrated, in the June results, with mill and underground operations delivering the strongest monthly performance to date with record mine and mill tonnage and throughput, zinc recoveries and concentrate production.
“Declaring Commercial Production at Caribou represents a major milestone for Trevali’s second operating zinc mine and strengthens the company’s position as the only current primary zinc producer on the TSX poised to benefit from the forecast zinc commodity price rally,” states Dr. Mark Cruise, Trevali’s President and CEO. “This achievement, during a time of challenging market conditions, is a testament to the professionalism, dedication, attitude and hard work of our Caribou team including our valued contractors and partners. Based on our experience at the Santander Mine, I remain extremely confident ongoing optimizations at Caribou will continue to build upon these foundations during the remainder of 2016, exemplified by Caribou zinc recoveries in early July already averaging 82%.”
Caribou Mill
During June, the Caribou metallurgical team made further improvements on increasing zinc recoveries into entitlement ranges as outlined in the Caribou PEA report. Trevali continues to focus on highlighted areas for metallurgical improvement with modifications to be implemented during ongoing scheduled maintenance periods.
Cu circuit test work using plant feed is ongoing with additional work to be implemented following final upgrades and improvements to both the Zn and Pb circuits.
Caribou Mining
Underground operation improvement work continues towards de-bottlenecking initiatives. Work is ongoing, however June successfully delivered the largest amount of stope tonnes to the mill to date with monthly production increasing to an average of 2,423-tpd. It is anticipated to further boost production rates upwards of 2,700-tpd. Head grades are anticipated to range from 5.9-6.2% Zn, 2.5-2.7% Pb and 65-70 grams/tonne Ag.
Geologically, year-to-date reconciliation to the block model is very high at 97% correlation and dilution remains below design levels resulting in underground delivering increased metal units to the mill. A 10,000-metre resource conversation drill program is in progress and will be ongoing to year-end. Mineralization remains open for expansion at depth and to the NW, and the company classifies the exploration potential as good to excellent.
Caribou production guidance (July 1-December 31, 2016) in payable metals is approximately:
- Zinc – 37-41 million pounds
- Lead – 14-15 million pounds
- Silver – 380,000 to 420,000 ounces
Trevalic also produces zinc and lead-silver concentrates from its 2,000-tonne-per-day Santander Mine in Peru and owns the Halfmile and Stratmat base metal deposits, located in New Brunswick, that are currently undergoing a Preliminary Economic Assessment.