Drill core from the Farellon Vein. (Image courtesy of Altiplano Metals).
Altiplano Metals (TSXV: APN) announced that it has reached a promissory agreement with SBX Chile to purchase a mill and processing facility to support its Farellon mine in northern Chile.
In a press release, Altiplano said the deal involves the purchase of crushing and grinding equipment and a flotation plant with enough capacity to process 5,000 tonnes/month of production from Farellon.
The plant has been on recent care and maintenance and includes primary, secondary, and tertiary crushing, milling, two 5′ x 10′ ball mills, and a full flotation circuit.
Altiplano Metals said this move will support cost reductions and improved metal payables
In parallel to this purchase, the Canadian miner signed a land agreement where the plant will be located, approximately 15 kilometres from the mine. The move and assembly of the plant to this new site, which is some 280 kilometres from its current location, is expected to be completed in Q4 2020.
“With the addition of the processing facility, Altiplano will benefit from further cost reductions while having better processing control and improved metal payables,” Alastair McIntyre, the company’s CEO, said in the media brief. “In addition, we are pleased that we were able to source the equipment locally to support local companies and contractors.”
Farellon is a high-grade iron-oxide-copper-gold system with a 5,000 tonnes/month license and permit. Altiplano has been recovering Cu-Au mineralized material from an underground decline through a series of drifts.
Since Q1 2018, the miner has extracted approximately 2.24 million pounds of copper from mineralized copper material with an average copper grade of 1.80%.
