- 01PoC campaign under way at Tecomatlán plant.
- 02First 200 t ore trucked from Chinantla.
- 03Five-year ore-supply pact secured.
EV Resources (ASX: EVR) has commenced a proof-of-concept campaign targeting production of the first antimony concentrate from its Tecomatlán processing plant in Mexico.
The plant has moved from integration into live PoC operations, with the first truckload of 200 dry tonnes of high-grade antimony ore from the Chinantla mine delivered ahead of crushing and screening tests.
EV’s Mexican subsidiary Stibcorp SA de CV purchased the ore from stockpiles held by a local Chinantla operator and is the first secured under a recent five-year ore supply agreement.
EV’s site team has completed a full mechanical inspection and maintenance program of the plant’s crushing circuit, removing legacy equipment associated with the previous barite operations—such as conveyor belts, dust collectors, and a concrete-block wall—to make way for the crushed ore stockpile.
The crushed ore will then be screened to separate fines from oversize and the stockpile of fines will be progressively fed into Tecomatlán’s grinding, flotation and gravity circuits to produce a marketable antimony concentrate.
Antimony Strategy Centrepiece
The Tecomatlán plant is the centrepiece of EV’s near-term strategy to become an antimony concentrate producer.
It incorporates crushing, grinding, flotation, and gravity concentration circuits, offering the flexibility to process antimony ore from multiple regional sources as demonstrated by recent metallurgical test work on Chinantla ore that delivered 81.1% antimony recoveries and ore (up to 78.6% recoveries and 68.3% antimony concentrate) from the Vinatas operation.
EV’s PoC campaign aims to demonstrate the Tecomatlán processing model at operating scale by processing regional antimony ore and producing a marketable antimony concentrate.
Ore haulage to the plant has commenced via a rehabilitated access road, with the first truckloads delivered and stockpiled at the crushing yard adjacent to the plant’s primary crusher.
Exciting Company Milestone
EV interim chief executive officer Miguel Barahona said the proof-of-concept campaign was an exciting milestone for the company.
“Seeing the first trucks of antimony ore tip at the Tecomatlán crushing yard is a moment our whole team has been working towards,” he said.
“After months of metallurgical testwork and plant integration, we now have ore on the ground, a crushing circuit that has been fully serviced and is now running and a growing stockpile of crushed fines ready to go into the mill.”
“These are the practical, physical steps that take a processing plant from paper to production and every one of them brings us closer to the milestone that matters most to our shareholders—the production of our first antimony concentrate.”
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