Premier African Minerals, the AIM-traded, multi-commodity mining and natural resource development company, reports that plant upgrades are now installed and operational at the RHA tungsten project (RHA) in Zimbabwe in respect of which Premier is the operator and holds 49 %.
Plant upgrade underway at RHA. The work has now been completed and the plant is operational (photo: Premier).
The screens, plant modifications as well as the electrical reticulation works have been completed and the plant is undergoing a phased commissioning and optimisation process to achieve the anticipated recoveries and operational throughput. Wolframite concentrate from ore from the underground mine has been produced. The throughput of the plant will be steadily increased to the plant’s design capacity of 16 tonnes per hour.
“I am pleased to report the installation of these much anticipated modifications at RHA and the commencement of the recommissioning and optimisation process,” comments George Roach, Premier’s CEO. “I will keep the market informed of progress and look forward to being in a position to deal with financial forecasts in the near future.
“At the same time, I am equally pleased to report that XRT test-work recently conducted on bulk sample material from RHA was re-run at the express direction of the equipment provider to confirm the excellent results previously achieved, and the equipment provider now confirms that the sort achieved a near 100 % recovery. Premier is reassessing the pit capacity to meet the minimum tonnage XRT sorting will require and expects to be in a position to progress this in early August.”
The RHA project is located in an area of historic production, approximately 270 km north-west of Bulawayo. Small-scale surface and underground mining was conducted at the site between 1931 and 1979. Premier, which employs a simple gravity separation process route for recovery of tungsten minerals, restarted production at the site in 2015.
