Tungsten West hopes to start drilling at its tin-tungsten mine in Devon next week as it looks to raise £5 million with a private placement.
The mining company will also begin selling the 700,000 tonnes of aggregates already stockpiled on the surface within the next few weeks.
The company is currently rebuilding the existing plant for Hemerdon Mine, also known as Drakelands Mine, currently estimated to have a life of 23 years and possibly up to 38 years.
In a presentation to Fox-Davies Capital Tungsten West’s executive chairman Mark Thompson said that next week’s drilling would be at two sites to the south of the previous drill site.
The company will also rebuild the front end of the existing plant to try to begin a “very profitable production.”
In the following two to three years, Tungsten West will target 70-72% recovery with the possibility of the company carrying out alkaline leaching in sodium hydroxide at the site.
This will allow the company to produce a better product in addition to a separate product of sodium tungstate, as well as reducing costs and increasing the overall value of the project.
AGGREGATES
Aggregates will be a natural by-product from the production process and in the current working model equate to 7% of total revenues with 5% of tin and the balance in tungsten.
In the future, aggregates could be a key product in the whole project.
Chief executive Max Denning said that Tungsten West could produce 3.5 million tonnes of aggregates per annum depending on the quantity exported.
The UK aggregates market is 220Mt per annum.
Mr Denning added that the company’s short-term strategy is to “saturate the entirety of the road capacity in and around Hemerdon and attack the local market which equates to half a million to 750,000 tonnes per annum.”
Devon County Council has approved a 1.5Mt annual production limitation, but the company wants to extend the permit to 3Mt.
The project has 95% local approval and a £13.2m restoration bond in place.
ENVIRONMENT
Tungsten West also has a carbon neutral strategy and aims to be the greenest mining company in the world by using wind and solar power on the site.
It will have diesel trucks but will use hydrogen or battery powered trucks when available.
HISTORY OF HEMERDON
Tungsten was first discovered on site in 1867 in a small granite quarry.
During WWI and WWII German prisoners of war were used to dig at the top of the site, and years later American mining company Amax also dug in the same spot, overlooking the original discovery site.
Australian mining company Wolf Minerals bought the site in 2007, focusing on the same place.
The company spent £200 million and ignored the value of the aggregates until the final weeks of operations before it fell into administration.
Hargreaves bought the site which Tungsten West then purchased in December 2019 for £9m.