CHART: Did the EV battery metals industry peak in 2022?
This is not what a bullish stream graph looks like.
The latest issue of International Mining Project News is now available (May 23). In addition to almost 35 feasibility and prefeasibility studies, it reports on some 40 projects in development and notes a higher than normal number of new mines going into production over the past two weeks. Big news is Couer d’Alene Mines noting that San Bartolome, “the world’s largest pure silver mine” is now in the final stages of startup. Peñasquito is another big one and Goldcorp has poured its first gold at that project in Zacatecas, Mexico. Nearly 2 Mt of ore has been stacked on the heap leach pads, “with percolation rates, heap chemistry and gold recovery rates meeting or exceeding expectations,” the company reports. Peñasquito will be an Operations Focus feature in the September issue of International Mining. Another one starting up is River Diamonds’ 100% owned Vatukoula gold mine in Fiji. At European Minerals Corp’s Varvarinskoye gold/copper project in Kazakhstan further positive progress has been made in bringing the plant to commercial production. In the same country, Hambledon Mining reports its first export of gold from Sekisovskoye and the positive results of the study into the underground resource. The commissioning program of Avoca Resources’ new 1 Mt/y CIL treatment plant at Higginsville in Western Australia has commenced. (more…)
