Eurasia Mining plc (LON:EUA) has had a positive year so far with production at the West Kytlim platinum and gold mine on target and the Monchetundra project close to becoming fully permitted.
At the Russian-focused miner’s annual general meeting in July, chairman Christian Schaffalitzky said the appointment of Techstroy as the contractor for West Kytlim has proven to be a catalyst that has driven the project into a very successful mining season.
Total production at the mine so far this year has been on track and grades have been much higher than anticipated at West Kytlim, located on Ural Mountains.
“We estimate we are running up to a maximum of 7kg of raw platinum mine product in one-day throughput,” Schaffalitzky said in the AGM statement.
“Our collaboration with Techstroy has been positive, in that both parties are comfortable with their respective roles and responsibilities, with mine progress generally, and with earnings above initial Q1 and Q2 estimates.”
In its full-year results statement in June, the company said total raw platinum produced from initial start-up on 3 May to 22 June 2018 stood at 2,235 ounces and the run-rate is scaling up with the current record single-day production standing at 221 ounces.
READ: Eurasia Mining says West Kytlim is truly delivering
Grades for the period averaged 0.81 grams per cubic metre.
Monchetundra mining permit application on course
The mine permit application process for the Monchetundra platinum and gold project is taking less time than expected with the application reaching the office of Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, just six months after the process was started.
Eurasia expects to see the application emerge from the prime minister’s office by late summer, based on its experience with the West Kytlim mine.
“We have proven our ability to make exploration discoveries, fund the exploration process, see the project through the mine permitting process with Russian state approved reserves, and then lastly see the project through to production and it is our aim to repeat the West Kytlim model with the much larger Monchetundra project,” Schaffalitzky said.
Keen interest from financial institutions
With the Monchetundra mine being so close to becoming fully permitted, Schaffalitzky said financial institutions are taking a keener interest in Eurasia’s progress. This bodes well for the time when the company will need to finance development of the project.
“It is our intention to add mine engineering experience and possibly additional financial experience [to the board], ideally with exposure to far eastern markets, which we increasingly see as a commercial focus for our operations and a real growth area for commercial transactions in the PGM [platinum group metals] space,” Schaffalitzky said.
A discovery certificate, confirming the title for the contained reserves and resources at the Monchetundra project was issued in July of 2017, which marked a major milestone for Eurasia.
Reserves and resources at the project, located on the Kola Peninsula, are estimated to contain 55.9 tonnes of palladium equivalent, 28,124 tonnes of copper, 30,410 tonnes of nickel and 2 tonnes of gold.
An engineering contract to develop the mine is already in place with China state-owned Sinosteel, agreed in 2016. Sinosteel will undertake the mine and processing plant construction and commissioning on a turnkey, commercial arms-length basis.