April 23, 2020: Canadian mining company LeadFX announced on April 17 it had secured C$2 million ($1.4 million) financing to re-open its Paroo Station lead mine in Western Australia, which will rank it as one of the world’s top 10 lead producers, the firm claims.
With the addition of a hydrometallurgical process at the mine, transport costs will be reduced and it will be possible for its lead to be processed in secondary lead smelters – which is where battery makers get most of their lead supplies.
The funding will come from InCoR Technologies — which has in turn licensed its hydrometallurgical technology, which will be added downstream for processing the lead concentrate so it can produce LME grade lead ingots as a second phase development, the firm said.
“Company investigations suggest its carbonate concentrate is amenable to processing in secondary lead smelters that recycle used lead acid batteries, and would be used as a supplement or replacement of ULAB paste in secondary lead smelters,” LeadFX said.
Farid Ahmed, principal analyst, lead markets with Wood Mackenzie, says the mine will have some way to go before it can achieve top 10 status. “Formerly known as the Magellan mine, it has had a chequered, difficult past,” he said.
“Paroo Station is almost unique in being a lead-only mine from a lead carbonate ore body, whereas the overwhelming majority of lead ores are found as galena in combined lead-zinc mines, with lead zinc occurring in the same ore body.
“A key problem is that lead carbonate concentrate is very difficult to handle, with the ready potential of contamination issues. This is much less of a problem for concentrates from regular mines. That’s why, in the past, Paroo Station mine operators had to transport their concentrate in sealed containers rather than in bulk. Problems occurred with lead contamination at the ports of Fremantle and Esperance in Western Australia, bringing a temporary halt to transporting it.
“For the past few years, the mine owners have been developing the idea of producing refined lead ingots directly from the lead carbonate product at the mine itself, thereby obviating the need to transport the lead carbonate with all its accompanying hazards.
“This includes developing a novel hydrometallurgical process which has yet to be proven beyond lab scale. The first phase of the plan appears to be an interim measure, whereby lead carbonate concentrates will be transported from the mine and include secondary lead smelters as potential customers, rather than just the primary smelters.
“The second phase is production of refined lead ingots at the mine, and the Western Australia authorities have been very clear that they require a commitment to the second phase to acquiesce to the first one.”
Before Paroo Station was placed on care and maintenance in the first quarter of 2015, it had produced more than 464,000 tonnes of concentrate containing more than 300,000 tonnes of lead, LeadFX said.
