Commissioning of the significantly refurbished and upgraded processing facilities at Griffin Mining’s Caijiaying Zinc Gold Project in Henan Province is under way. This process follows the suspension of processing announced on August 13, 2014, to provide for the expansion.

The refurbished two 350,000 tonne/annum primary ball mills, new and larger flotation cells and increased storage and handling facilities are being commissioned using the crushed ore available.

The new, three-stage rushing circuit and back-up generators were expected to be commissioned on Wednesday, November 19, with ore that has continued to be mined and stockpiled for the past three months. Annual name-plate throughput of 750,000 tonnes was expected to be re-instated at this point.

The upgrade to the main processing facilities is scheduled to be completed on December 15 upon the delivery and installation of the new, 800,000 tonne/annum primary ball mill.

Griffin hopes that demarcation issues between competing Chinese power suppliers for an enhanced power supply to the processing facilities will be resolved by that time. It is expected that annual throughput will reach 1.5 million tonnes by the summer of 2015, double the previous capacity.

The company says the upgrade continues to fall within the capital amount budgeted, however, due to the 4-week delay in commissioning, annual production of zinc metal in concentrate for 2014 is expected to be lower than that achieved in 2013.

Griffin Mining has been operating successfully in China since acquiring its interest in the Caijiaying mine in 1997. Griffin was the first foreign company to obtain an exploration licence, a mining licence and construct a new mine in China and is one of only three foreign companies currently mining, as opposed to exploring, in China.