Vena assesses zinc/manganese tailings

Vena Resources (VEM-T) is looking into mining the tailings at its Azulcocha zinc, manganese and gold project in Peru.

The company announced today that it has started planning, with an unnamed partner, to begin a pilot test program and final economic assessment of the Azulcocha tailings.

According to a 2005, a National Instrument 43-101 resource estimate, the tailings pond has probably reserves of 908,000 tons grading 3.27% zinc, 10.04% manganese and 1.13 gram gold per tonne. It contains about 30,000 tonnes of zinc metal and 91,000 tonnes of manganese metal.

Metallurgical testing, included in a prefeasibility study at the time, showed that a 66% of the zinc and 71.1% of the manganese could be recovered and processed into marketable concentrates.

Gold was not included in the prefeasibility study, which looked at building a 500-tonne-per-day plant. The 2005 study found the project was economic with a net present value of US$37.2 million using a zinc price of US50¢ per lb. and a manganese price of US70¢ per lb.

Vena has already bought a zinc flotation mill that could process 1,400 tonnes per day and has installed an electrical substation and other infrastructure.

If the pilot test proves successful, Vena will apply for permits to begin mining the tailings. The funds will be used to construct a much larger tailings pond for the underground mine.

The project is located in Junin and covers about 86 sq. km. A zinc-antimony mine was in operation from 1975-86, and processed 1.4 million tonnes of ore, amounting to 314,000 tonnes of concentrate and 1.1 million tonnes of tailings.

Vena shares were down half a cent today to 33¢ on a trading volume of about 241,000 shares.