LONDON (Alliance News) - Natural resources investor Evocutis PLC Thursday said there is "significant near and long term potential" to expand mining operations following the completion of a NI 43-101 technical report compiled by Micon International Co Ltd and an operations update for the Bodó Tungsten Mine in Brazil.
Evocutis is in the process of acquiring an initial 10% interest in Brazil Tungsten Holdings Ltd, which owns a 25 year lease over the producing Bodó Tungsten Mine in Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil, by investing USD1 million in new capital for the specific purposes of mine expansion. Evocutis will acquire the 10% interest by subscribing for new Brazil Tungsten shares, paying USD250,000 on signing the agreement.
Evocutis will make a further payment of USD750,000 to Brazil Tungsten towards the costs of expanding the operations at the Bodó Mine on signing of a formal investment agreement, which it expects to complete over the next few weeks.
Brazil Tungsten has the option to extend the lease, according to Evocutis.
Evocutis also has an exclusive option to increase its holding in Brazil Tungsten to 20% within 60 days by investing a further USD1million towards mine expansion, subject to certain conditions.
"Evocutis is pleased with the rapid progress being made by the operators and management of the Bodó Tungsten Mine in Brazil, and we look forward to closing the final contracts shortly that will enable the company to provide the necessary additional funding required to ramp up production over the coming year," Chairman David Lenigas said in a statement.
According to Micon International Co's technical report, high priority potential mineral resources total 112,000 tonnes grading 0.7-1.0% tungsten tri-oxide for between 82,900-116,400 metric tonne units of contained tungsten tri-oxide.
Medium term targets for exploration and development have a potential resource of 239,250 tonnes grading 0.7-1.0% tungsten tri-oxide for between 167,000-239,000 metric tonne units of contained tungsten tri-oxide.
The exploration potential of the Brazil Tungsten mineral licence areas is significant, and has the potential to host an exploration target in the range of two to three million tonnes, according to Evocutis.
The Bodó mine is currently operating at approximately 50-60 tonnes of ore per day from the Pajeù incline Shaft on a 6 day per week operation, Evocutis said.
The second mining area at Bodó, the central incline shaft, located about 400 metres from the current mining operations is currently being re-furbished and first ore is scheduled for delivery from central shaft to the mill in mid-February, Evocutis said.
According to Evocutis, Brazil Tungsten envisages that the central shaft will quickly double overall Bodóproduction to about 100 tonnes per day of tungsten ore to the mill by the end of March.
Evocutis shares were up 11% at 0.345 pence on Thursday.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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