Modern Mining April 2016

MINING News

Overall view of the zinc expansion project at Bisha (photo: Nevsun).

Bisha zinc expansion project starts commissioning

Vancouver-based Nevsun Resources, listed on the TSX and NYSE, has provided an update on the Bisha zinc expansion project in Eritrea. Nevsun has a 60 % interest in the high-grade Bisha mine with the balance held by the state-owned Eritrean National Mining Corp. According to the company, construc- tion remains on schedule and well under budget with nearly one million man hours worked with zero lost time incidents. Cold commissioning is now underway and pro-

screen and beneficiate portions of the materials in an effort to create saleable contiguous lots of material. These efforts defined 90 000 tonnes of varying materials assaying 20 to 30 g/t gold and 800 to 900 g/t silver. Bisha will continue to market this material throughout 2016. Cliff Davis, Nevsun’s CEO, commented, “With the zinc plant nearly complete, strong demand for products and increas- ing gold, silver and copper prices since December 31, 2015, we expect higher than budgeted cash flows throughout 2016. The recent precious metal stockpile sales con- firm the marketability of the material at more favourable commercial terms than originally expected. In addition, with the likely prioritisation of shipping the pre- cious metal stockpile material, I am not expecting the first sale of zinc concentrate until late Q3 or early Q4 2016.” Bisha is a large, high-grade volcano- genic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit located 150 km west of Asmara in Eritrea. The US$250 million Bisha mine was con- structed on time and under budget from 2008 to 2010. Processing oxide ore, the mine produced low-cost gold-silver doré until mid-2013. Through a US$110 million copper expansion project, also delivered on time and under budget, throughput expanded to 2,4 Mt/a supergene ore and the product switched to copper concen- trate. The zinc expansion project adds zinc concentrates to the product mix. 

gressing well. Hot (ore) commissioning has been delayed one month due to additional supergene copper processing. The zinc expansion project enables processing of the primary copper-zinc- gold-silver ore at up to 2,4 Mt/a, producing both copper and zinc concentrates from the existing copper flotation and new zinc flotation plants. Current reserve life with the completed zinc expansion project is to 2025. Bisha is one of the few new sources of

zinc concentrate hitting the market in 2016. Bisha’s zinc concentrate is expected to be high quality and is reportedly attracting signif- icant interest from buyers. Bisha’s zinc offtake remains completely uncommitted at this time as the zinc market is expected to continue to tighten. The forecast total cost of the zinc expansion proj- ect remains approximately US$80 million, significantly under the original budget of US$100 million. Bisha continues to mine, and has historically stock- piled, a variety of highly variable precious metal materials. In 2015 Bisha invested in equipment to

The zinc regrind facility at Bisha under construction in October 2015 (photo: Nevsun).

12  MODERN MINING  April 2016