JUNIOR MINING

Impact Silver entering new phase with Capire open pit silver mine

Junior silver miner, Impact Silver, is hoping to enter the big league with its new Capire open pit operation to supplement output from its existing Royal Mines of Zacualpan operations.

Author: Lawrence Williams
Posted: Thursday , 12 Jan 2012

LONDON - 

Canada's Impact Silver, with its principal mining and exploration operations in the Zacualpan area of Mexico, about 3 hours drive from Mexico City, is entering a new phase with the commencement of construction on its Capire open pit silver mine.  It describes Capire as representing a new production centre in a new mining district and an opportunity that, upon successful completion of the proposed exploration and development programs, would propel Impact to become a multimillion ounce silver producer.

Capire is located in the Mamatla district, - a large (200 square kilometre) prospective silver bearing area adjacent to its Zacualpan operations, with the mine itself around 16 km to the southwest of its existing process plant and underground mining operations there.

Following receipt of the final mining permits for Capire, Impact already is undertaking the immediate start of site preparation work, including road and infrastructure upgrades and is to commence pre-stripping and tailings pond development.  It is installing a 200 ton/day pilot plant, which it already owns, and is planning initial shipment of concentrate to a smelter late this year.

Impact reports that on site, surface rights for all mining areas, including the tailings dam and the processing plant, have been secured. Condemnation drilling under the plant site, the tailings dam and rock waste piles have also been completed and subsurface water monitoring wells are currently in place and collecting data. Arrangements have been finalized with the national electricity company (Comisión Federal de Electricidad) to construct a 30-kilometer high voltage electric power line to the site, which will supply the company with sufficient electrical capacity to accommodate plans for future production expansion at Capire.

Initial operations are to be used to optimize mining and processing parameters in preparation for future construction of a larger production operation at Capire, with the potential to host an 800- to 1,500 ton/day process plant.

The initial 200-tpd pilot plant operation is designed to test metallurgical recoveries on a commercial scale; provide detailed information on mining costs; and, optimise mining and processing methods toward construction of a larger operation. The starter open pit will be excavated on the western portion of the Capire Zone to access near surface higher grade silver-zinc-lead (copper-gold) volcanogenic massive sulphide mineralization (VMS).

The NI-43 101 compliant resource at Capire to date in the Measured and Indicated category currently totals 7.2 million ounces silver, 30,446 ounces gold, 95.6 million lbs zinc and 37.2 million lbs lead. Subsequent drilling (6,698 meters) has expanded the Capire Zone to the north, east and southeast beyond the limits of these previously defined Mineral Resources.