Canadian-based Almonty Industries has confirmed that its Sangdong tungsten mine under construction in South Korea is stable after receiving some of the heaviest rains in the region in decades.
The company said that, in the three days between 9 August and 11 August, the operation received more than 220 millimetres (about 8.7 inches) of rain.
“The entire length of the mine was kept stable and all underground infrastructures such as pumping, power ventilation and compressed air operated normally,” Almonty officials said, adding that all surface related infrastructures including the mine support office, power supply network, drainage, waste dump, ore stockpiles, batch plant and subcontractors installations also operated as normal.
The mine performed a technical audit as well, which found no issues with the infrastructure.
Crews at Sangdong recently achieved a development milestone with the hanging wall gallery of -1 Level being reached, an achievement that will allow further exploration and exploitation of the ore zone.
Almonty chairman, president and CEO Lewis Black said the gallery achievement gives the company access to about 55% of its reserves at Sangdong. He also positively commented on the outcome of the weather event.
“We are pleased the Sangdong mine infrastructure passed this stress test. [It] is a testament to the quality of the engineering works and studies completed over the several years leading to construction of our world class…mine.”
Sangdong, historically one of the largest tungsten mines in the world and one of the few long-life, high-grade tungsten deposits outside of China, was acquired by Almonty in September 2015 from Woulfe Mining.
Source: www.almonty.com