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The potential for expansion of the operation is huge as the current known resource covers only 2.5 km of a total 16 km of identified mineralization and the mill is well built and in excellent condition despite being built 20 years ago.
In May of last year the Company changed from exploration to development. A new board of experienced mining professionals was brought in, and management changes were made to allow the Company to move forward with re-development of the exceptional high-grade resource. By January of this year, the Company had successfully completed a Scoping Study indicating that the operation could be cheaply and easily redeveloped into a low cost producer of significant quantities of zinc, with a break-even cost after by product credits of 34.5 cents per pound of saleable zinc. The keys to redevelopment identified by the new management include increasing through-put, an addition of a gravity front end to the mill, changes in the handling of tailings to produce paste backfill, and production of separate saleable concentrates of zinc, lead and copper. As
an engineer and project manager, the exciting part of any development such
as this is the introduction of technology to improve the financial
performance of an operation. As a mining engineer, the most important
aspect is to ensure that this technology is simple. At Prairie Creek, we
are fortunate that the very high-grade ore encountered in both the Vein
and Stratabound mineralization is hosted in carbonate rocks, making it
ideal for the use of gravity separation. |
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