Almonty Industries Inc. has announced that it is moving forward with plans to re-open the Los Santos mine in Spain, which has been in planned care and maintenance since 2020.
According to the company, it undertook studies into the re-commencement of production at the mine via the retreating of tailings and the use of flotation technology developed for the Sangdong Tungsten Mine.
Almonty estimates that the site will re-open by the third quarter depending on the delivery times of some flotation plant items.
It intends to retreat the tails to capture the more than 800,000 metric tonnes of tungsten oxide contained within the site and torta.
Capital expenditure for the mine is expected to be at least $1.95 million.
The overall average grade of the tails is 0.14 per cent and was published in Almonty’s latest Joint Ore Reserves Committee report.
The company expects that the earnings from the reopening of the mine will be similar to the earnings at its existing Panasqueira production mine in Portugal.
Commenting on the matter, Almonty Chairman, President and CEO Lewis Black said the technology at its Sangdong Tungsten Mine could be adapted to other sites to deal with finer material that could inhibit treating tails commercially.
“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 to our current revenue and earnings as we continue to construct Sangdong,” he added.
The Los Santos mine was acquired by the company in 2011 and is located near Salamanca in western Spain.
The Sangdong mine, which was historically one of the largest tungsten mines in the world and one of the few long-life, high-grade tungsten deposits outside of China, was acquired by the company in September 2015 through the acquisition of a 100 per cent interest in Woulfe Mining Corp.
