New mill will extend life of Navan mine, says Boliden CEO

The massive €27 million investment in a new grinding mill at Tara Mines is part of the Boliden group's commitment to extending the life of the mine in Navan, the Swedish group's CEO, Lennart Evrell, said at the official opening of the new mill on Monday. "We are very committed to Tara Mines," Mr Evrell told the gathering, which included the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, who performed the official opening ceremony. Mr Evrell said Boliden was hoping to increase the life of the mine through exploration and by lowering cost production, and they had doubled the exploration budget this year. "There are many years to go. If we continue exploration and drive down costs, it will increase the life of the mine and the new autogenous grinding mill is a major step in our action plan," he said. The new mill will increase the yield of zinc and improve the viability of Tara into the future by improving efficiency and reducing costs in the surface processing plant. The new technology will reduce the size of the ore and will replace the equipment and consumables which have been used in grinding up until now. "Mines are normally profitable, but only the low-cost mines survive in difficult times. Boliden is developing technologies to produce low-cost ore," he said. Mr Evrell recalled that, at the end of last year, Tara went into a continuous shift operation, increased the speed of access to the ore, improved the vehicle fleet and increased the exploration programme. "We are now happy to see progress on these actions which will improve productivity and metal recovery," he said. Minister Noel Dempsey said the investment in the new mill was a very important statement by Boliden on the future of Tara Mines. He acknowledged the huge role Tara Mines played, not just in Navan or Meath, but in the entire country. "There is huge employment in the mine and knock-on employment in the wider community," he said. "Tara Mines is hugely important, both locally and nationally, and they have made a huge contribution to the advancement of mining in Ireland. Some of us are old enough to remember what mining was like before Tara came to Navan. It had a very bad name. Tara made a particular effort on the environment and safety issues and the success of subsequent mines in Ireland is largely down to the committment of Tara Mines and its workforce," the minister said. Mr Dempsey thanked Boliden for the statement is was making on the Navan mine's future by the investment in the new mill. Tara Mines is Europe's biggest zinc mine and the fifth largest in the world, producing around 200,000 tonnes of zinc and a further 40,000 tonnes of lead every year.