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MODERN MINING
April 2016
MINING News
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-
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).
Overall view of the zinc expansion project at Bisha (photo: Nevsun).
Bisha zinc expansion project starts commissioning
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.