PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Unlisted Piran Resources has produced its first tin concentrate from the Musha and Ntunga mines, in Rwanda.
This initial production was sourced from reprocessing of tailings dumps from previous mining operations.
The company pointed out that previous mining on the license areas was fairly rudimentary, with poor beneficiation. However, Piran has invested in modern technology to ensure higher-grade recoveries.
The pilot plant operation was expected to generate monthly production of between 5 t to 10 t of tin in concentrate.
MD Ben Smit said that restarting small-scale mining was the cornerstone of the first phase of Piran’s development strategy, with the company aiming to fully mechanise the operation, construct commercial scale facilities and expand the processing capacity to 120 t/h of material per hour.
It is anticipated that operations would be ramped up to full-scale production within a 12-month period.
An offtake agreement is already in place with a major trading company for this product.
“With our offtake agreement in place, we will be selling our product immediately, generating early cash flow so we can look to expand operations using our own balance sheet,” Smit said.