Canadian mining firm Silvercorp Metals has unveiled plans to construct a new flotation mill and tailings storage facility (TSF) at Henan Province in China.
Through its 77.5% owned subsidiary Henan Found Mining, the company has commenced a process to build a 3,000 tonne per day flotation mill and tailings storage facility beside an existing mill presently operating at the Ying Mining District.
As per the regulation process, the approval process needs a construction proposal and plan for new development projects. It has to be submitted to the Development and Reform Commission of Luoyang City.
The process also includes the submission of a completed environmental assessment report to the Environmental Protection Authority of Luoyang City, as well as a completed safety assessment report to the Work Safety Authority of Luoyang City.
Apart from applying for the re-zoning of the land usage with the County government, the company has started negotiations for a long-term lease or acquisition of land.
Silvercorp has also entered into design contracts with Changchun Gold Design Institute, a Chinese engineering firm that is responsible for the designing of the mill and the TSF.
Covering the land usage rights, the preliminary construction budget is expected to be around $25m for the mill and $38m for the TSF.
Featuring a gold gravity separation circuit, the new mill will be used for the production of silver-lead, zinc, and copper concentrates.
Silvercorp stated: “The rationale for building the new mill and TSF is to provide the Company with additional capacity to continue growing its existing mining operations at the Ying Mining District in light of recent successful drilling programs that have discovered new resources, to process ore from its recent acquisitions and for potential consolidation of other nearby projects.
“Once the new mill is completed, the Company will decommission its No. 1 mill to have approximately 5,000 tonnes per day milling capacity.”
The company will construct the TSF in two phases, including around 10.2 million cubic metres of storage capacity in phase I and up to 8.9 million cubic metres in phase II. Its total storage capacity will be around19.1 million cubic metres.
Construction on the mill is expected to be completed by the end of 2023, while the phase I of the TSF by mid-2024.
