London 26/01/2016 - Vedanta Resources has made its final shipment of zinc concentrate from its Lisheen mine in Ireland, which ceased operations in December 2015 after running for 17 years, it said this week.
The last shipment was made on January 21 from the port of Cork, the Indian company said in a release.
This follows the last zinc concentrate shipment made in December by Minerals and Metals Group's Century mine in Australia. The closure of the two mines prompted a sharp sharp drop in zinc treatment charges (TCs) in recent weeks, with analysts also publishing bullish price forecasts for this year.
FastMarkets' analysts also believe the zinc price, currently at $1,550 per tonne on the LME, is oversold given the solid fundamentals.
Lisheen, located in County Tipperary, stopped mining activities in November 2015 and milling ceased in December 2015. It consisted of an underground mine, concentrator and backfill plant and typically produced 300,000 tonnes per year of zinc concentrate and 38,000 tonnes per year of lead concentrate.
Operations at Lisheen began in 1999 following a successful development partnership between Minorco, which merged with Anglo American in 1999, and Ivernia West. In 2011, Vedanta Ltd, a listed subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, acquired the mine from Anglo American, which had taken full ownership of the site in 2003.
Over its life, 22.4 million tonnes of ore were mined at Lisheen at an average grade of 11.63 percent zinc and 1.96 percent lead.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)