Ormonde Updates on Progress at Barruecopardo Tungsten Process Plant

Ormonde Mining (LSE:ORM) shared an update on its Spain-based Barruecopardo tungsten project, saying that process plant commissioning is “effectively complete.”

The plant is now achieving throughput rates of up to 190 tonnes per hour on fresh ore, which is enough to meet the asset’s steady state processing target of 1.1 million tonnes a year.

Other updates include:

• Processing of low-grade ore feed from the northern starter pit has produced concentrates exceeding 74% WO₃ (compared to the industry standard of 65% WO₃) and close to targeted specification; operational refinements are now focused on achieving targeted specification in the near term;
• The initial ore feed from the northern starter pit, a small pit representing only the first few months of mine production, has returned lower grade than forecast due to localised complexity within this peripheral remnant zone;
• Plans are therefore being developed to target mining of higher grade ore sources in the near term, including:
  • bringing forward mining in the higher grade southern starter pit, where mining has recently commenced; and
  • accelerating the waste stripping of the east wall of the historic pit, from surface to around 80 metres depth (“the east wall cutback”), to bring forward access to the main orebody situated below the historic open pit.

Michael Donoghue, chairman and managing director at Ormonde, commented:

The commissioning of the new process plant at Barruecopardo has essentially been completed, with the plant throughput achieving rates sufficient to meet the Project’s steady state processing target of 1.1 million tonnes per annum. The concentrates produced during commissioning are close to targeted specification, so with feed grade being the critical issue the focus on the Project has now turned to developing mining procedures and revised mining schedules to target higher grade, more representative ore sources earlier in the Year-1 ramp-up schedule. This includes accelerating waste stripping to allow access to the main orebody to be brought forward.

Click here to read the full Ormonde Mining (LSE:ORM) press release.