Trevali surges on polymetallic mine restart

Caribou mine and mill 50km west of Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada. Image: Trevali Mining

Trevali Mining (TSE: TV) jumped as much as 8.5% on Thursday after the company provided an update on construction and re-start of its 100%-owned Caribou zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold mine in New Brunswick, Canada.

In early afternoon trade the Vancouver-based junior gave up some of the gains to change hands at $1.11, up 4.7% on the Toronto Exchange.

Around 1.35 million shares in the $312 million company, up 10% this year, traded on Thursday.

In a statement Trevali said both surface and underground development programs at Caribou continue to advance and the project status remains on schedule for start-up commissioning in the first half of 2015.

Key schedule targets include underground mine production start-up in the first quarter of next year followed by mill commissioning start-up early Q2 and ramp-up to full scale production of 3,000 tonnes per day by end-2015.

The Caribou mine and mill complex located in the Bathurst mining camp is being restarted for a capital outlay of $36m. The project PEA outlined a 6.2 million tonne resource grading 6.11% zinc, 2.49% lead, 0.34% copper, 67.9 g/t silver, and 0.86 g/t gold.

Life of mine (6.3 years) average annual production is estimated at 93 million pounds of zinc, 33 million pounds of lead, 3 million pounds of copper, 730,000 ounces of silver and a some 1,500 ounces of gold.

Cash costs for Caribou came in at $0.46 per pound zinc equivalent with total site operating cost of $74.77 per tonne milled.

Trevali, which took ownership of the complex in 2012 after acquiring Maple Minerals in an all-stock deal valued at $22 million, said approximately 300 permanent fulltime positions will be created resulting and $57 million in direct royalties and tax payments.

Trevali can also haul ore from its 100%-owned Halfmile deposit located 20 kilometers south, while it builds up underground mine infrastructure at Caribou. Trial mining at Halfmile was conducted in 2012 and the ore was shipped to Glencore Xstrata’s Brunswick #12 mine for processing.