Name of the Project
Parys Mountain copper/lead/zinc project.

Location
North Wales, in the UK.

Project Owner/s
Anglesey Mining.

Project Description
A scoping study has reported positive results. 

The selected base case envisages a mining rate of 1 000 t/d to produce an average output of 14 000 t/y of zinc concentrate at 57% zinc, 7 200 t/y of lead concentrate at 52% lead and 4 000 t/y of copper concentrate at 25% copper over an initial mine life of eight years.

The study is based on a surface decline to access the White Rock zone. The proposed decline will be developed by mining contractors and used as the initial means of access to the resource for development and mining.

Mined ore will be trucked up the decline to the proposed surface processing plant.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The base case yields a pretax net present value, at a 10% discount rate, of $33.2-million and an internal rate of return of 28.3%, with a payback of four years.

Capital Expenditure
The initial capital cost for mine development is estimated at $13-million, for the concentrator at $29.5-million, the dense-medium separation plant at $3-million and infrastructure at $10-million, for a total of $53-million. A $4-million contingency provision is included.

Planned Start/End Date
Not stated.

Latest Developments
Anglesey Mining has appointed Micon International to conduct a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on its Parys Mountain project.

The PEA is the next step in the development of Parys Mountain on the road to production and follows from the optimisation studies recently completed by QME Mining Technical Services. The QME work has highlighted up to ten-million tonnes of potentially mineable material available at Parys Mountain, which is significantly bigger than the 2.1-million tonnes of indicated resource that was used in Micon’s 2017 scoping study.

QME has also identified that it should be possible to use a lower cutoff grade for mine planning purposes than used in the Micon 2017 study. QME has based this on their review of the expected operating costs at Parys Mountain based on their long and detailed experience in underground mine operations in Ireland and elsewhere.

As a result of the QME work it is expected that the planned production rate of 1 000 t/d used in 2017 will be expanded, and that the projected mine life of just eight years will be significantly extended.

In preparing the PEA, Micon will review all the QME work, including capital and operating cost estimates, orebody modelling and mine production planning. It is intended that Micon will evaluate several separate development scenarios based on the various ore zones available for mining and on differing production rates to best optimise the assets at Parys Mountain.

Micon will incorporate the results into detailed production and financial models to produce comprehensive and compliant reports that will be in a form that can be publicly released. It is expected that the PEA will be finalised by the end of November.

Subsequent to completion of the PEA, Anglesey intends pressing on to undertake a prefeasibility study to support financing for development of the mine at Parys Mountain.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
Micon and Fairport Engineering (scoping study and PEA) and QME (optimisation study).

Contact Details for Project Information
Anglesey Mining, tel + 44 1407 831275 or email mail@angleseymining.co.uk.