Name of the Mine
Los Santos mine.

Location
About 50 km from Salamanca in western Spain, in the province of Salamanca.

Mine Owner/s
Almonty Industries owns a 100% indirect interest in the Los Santos mine through Daytal Resources Spain, which owns a 100% direct interest in the mine.

Brief Description
Los Santos is an openpit scheelite skarn tungsten mine that has been on planned care and maintenance since February 2020. The mine produced tungsten concentrate and is being positioned for a restart based on the reprocessing of tailings inventories, rather than a full conventional mining restart at this stage.

Brief History
The Los Santos deposit was originally investigated by Billiton in the 1970s and 1980s. Daytal bought the deposit in 2007, openpit ore production started in 2008 and Almonty acquired the mine in September 2011. Pit production stopped in April 2019, after which tailings were reprocessed from April 2019 to January 2020. Almonty placed the mine on care and maintenance in February 2020 following additional testwork on tailings retreatment.

Primary Metals/Minerals
Tungsten, occurring mainly as scheelite. 

Secondary Metals/Minerals
Noe stated.

Geology/Mineralisation
Los Santos is situated within Lower Palaeozoic sediments in the Central Iberian Tectonic Zone, part of the Variscan orogenic belt. The local sequence comprises clastic metasediments, ortho- and para-gneisses, volcanic rocks and carbonate formations that were intruded by Hercynian granitoids, with granite and aplite dykes, sills and irregular pods cutting the metasediments near the regional granite contact.

The deposit is a skarn-hosted scheelite deposit formed where granitoid intrusions reacted with carbonate-rich sedimentary rocks, replacing them with calc-silicate or siliceous minerals and tungsten mineralisation. Tungsten occurs mainly as scheelite in massive pyroxene skarn, with pyroxene, plagioclase and magnetite. The scheelite is generally fine-grained, mostly less than 1 mm, although individual crystals can exceed 1 cm.

The skarn bodies are generally narrow, steeply dipping structures, with dips mostly between 60º and 90º. The deposit comprises several discrete zones, with mineralisation occurring in individual skarn beds separated by barren rock. The main skarn beds range from about 2 m to 20 m wide, with numerous thinner bands. Sulphide-rich skarns also occur locally, particularly around Las Cortinas, where scheelite and minor wolframite are associated with pyrite, arsenopyrite/lollingite, pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite.

Reserves
Los Santos had proven and probable reserves as at June 30, 2015, of 1.465-million tonnes grading 0.34% tungsten trioxide (WO₃), containing 4 951 t of WO₃. It also identified 2.062-million tonnes of tailings grading 0.15% WO₃, containing 3 191 t of WO₃, and stockpiles/concentrate stocks totalling 55 289 t grading 0.33% WO₃, containing 183 t of WO₃. The combined reserve, tailings and stockpile inventory totalled 8 325 t of WO₃.

No more recent public Los Santos reserve table has been published by Almonty.

Resources
Total measured and indicated mineral resources, as at June 30, 2015, were reported at 2.208-million tonnes grading 0.29% WO₃, containing 6 316 t of WO₃, inclusive of reserves. Inferred mineral resources were estimated at 1.878-million tonnes grading 0.25% WO₃, containing 4 663 t of WO₃. 

Almonty's current website and latest annual information material continue to reference the 2015 Los Santos technical report for the mine's resource and reserve information.

Type of Mine
Historically an openpit tungsten mine. The near-term restart plan is focused on tailings reprocessing. The mine also has identified underground potential below and around the main Los Santos pit, although this is not the mine’s current focus.

Mining Method
Historical mining was by conventional openpit methods, using drill-and-blast mining. 

Major Infrastructure/Equipment
Mine infrastructure includes access from the A-66 national road, internal access and haul roads, the mill, mine offices, a run-of-mine pad, a low-grade stockpile, openpit workings and waste dumps. 

The processing plant is based on crushing, grinding, gravity separation, sulphide flotation, drying and magnetic separation to produce high-grade scheelite concentrate. The plant includes a jaw crusher, two cone crushers, a rod mill, a regrind ball mill, hydrocyclones, low-intensity magnetic separation, rougher and cleaner spirals, shaking tables, a hydrosizer, flotation cells, a rotary kiln dryer and high-intensity magnetic separation. Tailings are dewatered using cyclones, a high-frequency screen, thickener and filter press, with process water recycled. 

Historical mining equipment included drills, haul trucks and crawler excavators. 

Prospects
Almonty plans to reopen Los Santos to restart production from tailings inventories in late 2026, subject to internal planning, operational readiness and regulatory matters. The company expects to modify the plant's infrastructure to improve recovery from the future processing of tailings.

Contact Details
Almonty Industries 
tel +1 647 438 9766 
Email info@almonty.com 
Website https://almonty.com/