Parys Mountain
Development and exploration work is being carried out by Anglesey at its 100% owned Parys Mountain zinc-copper-lead-silver-gold deposit in North Wales, UK. A Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) released in January 2021 shows an updated resource estimate by Micon International Limited (“Micon”) of 5.2 million tonnes at 4.3% combined base metals in the indicated category together with 11.7 million tonnes at 2.8% combined base metals in the inferred category.
Anglesey Mining's intention is to develop, build and operate a producing mine at Parys Mountain, on the island of Anglesey in North Wales, to create value for shareholders in an environmentally, socially, and ethically responsible manner for the benefit of all stakeholders.
The PEA is the result of a number of years of work by Micon, Fairport Engineering, and Quarry and Mining Equipment and has indicated a number of development scenarios for Parys Mountain. The most attractive of these scenarios would see a major mine constructed that would produce and treat 3,000 tonnes per day from a number of deposits. The total mined and treated would exceed 11 million tonnes over a twelve-year life. This is significantly larger operation than that envisaged in the last Scoping Study in 2017.
Under this expanded scenario three base metal concentrates as well as a gold concentrate would be produced containing on average 7,300 tonnes of copper, 8,000 tonnes of zinc, 7,600 tonnes of lead, 6,000 kilogrammes of silver and 160 kilogrammes of gold per annum. It is likely that these concentrates would be sent to Europe for smelting and refining.
Grangesberg Iron
Anglesey holds a 20% interest and management rights to the Grangesberg Iron project in Sweden, together with a right of first refusal to increase its interest by a further 51 percentage points. The price of iron ore increased almost 21% in 2020, and outpaced gold to rank as the best-performing major commodity in the first half of the year. Demand for high-quality iron ore remains strong, mainly driven by solid demand from China's steel mills despite COVID-19 impacts.
Labrador Iron Mines
Anglesey also holds 12% of Labrador Iron Mines Holdings Limited which has direct shipping iron ore deposits in Labrador and Quebec. These iron ore projects have been held in stand-by care and maintenance pending an improvement in the iron ore price, however on 29 Oct 2020 LIM announced the commencement of a Preliminary Economic Assessment on its Houston project. This represents the first major development of LIM’s assets since the last production in 2014. See details of the announcement on this link. LIM is working to commence production of direct shipping iron ore from the Houston deposits at the earliest opportunity, see the LIMH Second Quarter Results
The latest update to the PEA was published on 09 Mar 2021 and the LIM Annual Results (with further details of the plans for Houston) were published on 30 June 2021, see the News page for details
Parys Mountain, Anglesey, North Wales (Photo by Robert Bain)