(Alliance News) - W Resources PLC, a tungsten, tin and gold mining company, said Wednesday that it has contracted Francisco Pereira Marinho Imaos SA to provide low-cost haulage and crushing services to the company's Regua tungsten mine in northern Portugal.
Under the contract, once mining has commenced, ore from Regua will be hauled 27 kilometres to the existing FPMI crusher and crushed to a range of 5 to 10 millimetres. For this, W Resources will pay USD40 to USD45 per metric tonne unit, a measure of tungsten.
As part of the contract, FPMI will use the waste ore for rehabilitation of its existing quarry, providing local environmental benefits.
W Resources will pay EUR50,000 to expand access roads for haulage.
The company expects an updated reserves and resource estimate for the Regua mine by early October.
"Our aim is to bring Regua into commercial production with sensible capital deployment leveraging contract mining, haulage and crushing contracts, thereby keeping the capital costs of development low. The FPMI contract is an important step in achieving this objective," said W Resources Chair Michael Masterman.
Shares in W Resources were trading 1.0% lower at 0.45 pence each on Wednesday afternoon.