Nevsun on schedule and under budget to start zinc production as supply crunch peaks

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Eritrea-focused miner Nevsun Resources is on schedule and well below budget to start hot commissioning of the Bisha mine’s zinc expansion by May, with commercial production expected to get under way later this year.

The TSX- and NYSE MKT-listed miner reported that the expansion project was about 90% complete, and about $7-million under budget at $80-million.

The project would allow the company to process primary Bisha ores containing copper/zinc/gold/silver at up to 2.4-million tonnes a year, producing both copper and zinc concentrates from the existing copper flotation and new zinc flotation plants.

Based on the current openpit mine plan, Nevsun expected Bisha to produce on average 225-million pounds of zinc and 53-million pounds of copper in concentrate a year until 2025.

The deposit currently held life-of-mine payable metals of 470-million pounds of copper, 1.7-billion pounds of zinc, 240 000 oz of gold and 8.2-million ounces of silver. It had 3.4-billion pounds of zinc contained in compliant resource categories.

Headquartered in Vancouver, Nevsun owned 60% of the Bisha copper mine, where it also produced gold and silver by-products.

Zinc production was expected to dovetail into an expected 300 000 t zinc supply gap this year, which was expected to grow in future years, making the Bisha zinc start-up conveniently timed, especially in the wake of tumbling copper prices. Closure of large zinc mines such as the Brunswick mine, in the Bathurst mining camp of Canada’s New Brunswick province, cut about 10% of supply since 2014, which was compounded by a lack of new projects and exploration investment.