January 24 (SeeNews) - UK-based Mineco, which has mining operations in the Western Balkans, plans to start the commercial production of lead, zinc and copper concentrates at its mine near Serbia's Bosilegrad in 2020/21.
Currently, there is a pilot-phase project examining the results of trial production of concentrates from excavated ore, in order to develop a commercial flotation project, Mineco said in an e-mailed statement earlier this week.
The CEO of Mineco, Bojan Popovic, said that the Bosil-Metal mine is a great opportunity for Bosilegrad as the company is confident that the municipality that comes from the lowest development category can rise when the production starts in 2020/21. The project is located 30 km from Bosilegrad, some 400 km south of Belgrade, close to the borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria.
At the mine's newly commissioned pilot plant, pre-production bulk metallurgical test work is underway. Bosilegrad has become Mineco's fourth operating mine currently employing 120 people.
Last year, Mineco opened the lead mine near Olovo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, some 50 km from the capital Sarajevo. First deliveries of lead concentrate from this mine can be expected in the summer, the company said.
Mineco acquired the Olovo concession in 2012. Last year, the mine was granted the first new exploitation licence to be issued in Bosnia and Herzegovina in over thirty years.
Popovic said that in addition to the $4.5 million invested over the past year in development of the mine and its infrastructure, a gravity separation plant for production of lead concentrate has also been commissioned.
Mineco is in the final phase of work on the European project IMP@CT, which should result in a system of equipment and processes for enabling small scale mining, Popovic said.
The IMP@CT project is funded by the European Commission, with Mineco participating in consortium with several equipment manufacturers and universities. The IMP@CT project gives a solution that develops a so called "switch on-switch off" (SOSO) mining paradigm, in order to improve the viability of many critical metal and other small complex deposits.
Within the IMP@CT project, delivery of equipment for small scale mining to B&H is planned, as the first tests will be carried out in a part of the Olovo mine.
"We hope that this facility will justify the idea of the project and allow the exploitation of small ore deposits of strategically important metals such as lead or antimony that are all over Europe, and that it will provide Mineco a primary access to this technology to utilize its resources for launching a few smaller mines in Serbia and BiH", said Popovic.
The company's total investments for the year again exceeded $20 million (17.6 million euro) in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the company said.