Red River declares “commercial production” during December 2017 quarter
Stockpile of zinc concentrate at Thalanga.
Red River Resources (ASX: RVR) has recorded its first cash flow positive quarter from zinc production at its Thalanga project in central Queensland, generating A$6.8 million in cash during the December 2017 period and declaring the project had achieved “commercial production” on 31 December 2017.
Maiden output from the West 45 deposit was 67,000 tonnes of ore grading 0.3% copper, 2.5% lead and 5.7% zinc.
Meanwhile, processing continued ramping up to the annual 325,000tpa target, with 79,000t milled during the quarter to produce 6,398 dry tonnes of zinc concentrate, 2,859 dry tonnes of lead concentrate and 555 dry tonnes of copper concentrate.
Later this month, Red River will ship its first zinc and copper to its offtake partners, with 6,152 wet tonnes of zinc concentrate and 2,694 wet tonnes of lead concentrate provisionally sold.
Also, during the December period, Red River boosted its West 45 mineral resource to 0.6 million tonnes grading 15.4% zinc equipment and the deposit’s reserve to 0.6mt grading 11.6% zinc equivalent.
A maiden reserve was published for the Far West deposit of 1.5mt grading 12% zinc equivalent.
West 45 currently supports a mine life to 2019, while the Far West deposit has a seven-year life.
To increase mine life at both deposits and Thalanga, Red River is carrying out more resource definition and extension drilling.
Meanwhile, exploration across Thalanga has targeted Liontown East, Truncheon and Esso’s Waterloo deposits.
Less than two weeks ago, Red River reported assays from Liontown East, which revealed a 10.7m intersection grading 8.6% zinc equivalent, with a 4.8m interval containing 10.5% zinc equivalent.
Another narrower intercept returned 4.8m grading 23.9% zinc equivalent. When broken down into the individual commodities this was 0.6% copper, 5% lead, 12.5% zinc, 4.2 grams per tonne gold and 120g/t silver.
Concentrate production at Thalanga started in September, with mining to continue at West 45, while kicking off at Far West, and Waterloo, in various stages.
Total mineral resources at Thalanga, which comprises 420 square kilometres of tenements, sit at 5.52 million tonnes grading 1.1% copper, 2% lead, 6.7% zinc, 0.5g/t gold and 45g/t silver.
Shares in Red River soared on the back of the news, with the company’s share price at A$0.36 just before close of trade.