Sylvania Resources has been given the green light to establish a new pgm tailings facility at its Lannex mine, it emerged on Wednesday (14th April).

The company announced that it has received approval from the Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism for the project.

Despite being commissioned last September, the Lannex plant has been running at 30 per cent of its capacity due to restrictions on the feed from its temporary tailings dam.

Sylvania has now temporarily suspended operations at the eastern Bushveld Complex site as it waits for all the final approvals for the new tailings facility to be rubber-stamped.

However, it believes that the move will see the processing plant reach full capacity of 70,000 tonnes per month of feed from dump and run-of-mine resources.

"Although this suspension of Lannex is disappointing, there have been significant advantages in operating the plant at 30 per cent capacity to identify the inevitable operational issues that arise with the full commissioning of such a PGM project," said Managing Director Terence McConnachie.

Mr McConnachie added that the new facility should take about three months to construct, once the formalities of the approval process have been completed.

Sylvania had also been expecting construction work on a new dam to begin during the second quarter of 2010, but it is still awaiting a water licence and final permission from the Department of Mineral Resources.

Lannex is one of several pgm tailings retreatment operations currently being overseen by the company in South Africa.

Similar projects are being developed at CTRP, Mooinooi, Steelpoort, Doornbosch, Millsell and Tweefontein.

Source:

Sylvania gets approval for Limpopo PGM tailings project (14/04/10)

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