Anglesey Mining plc announced a Project Development and Cooperation Agreement with QME which will assist the development of the Parys Mountain copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver project, located on the island of Anglesey in North Wales.

Under the agreement, QME Mining Technical Services, a division of QME Ltd, will carry out an agreed programme of design, engineering and optimisation studies relating to the future development of Parys Mountain.

Anglesey Chief Executive, Bill Hooley, said: “We consider this to be a very important and positive step forward in the development of the Parys Mountain mine. QME is experienced in underground mine development and has developed and recruited the necessary skills in mine planning to deliver local and relevant underground mining expertise to Parys Mountain that will assist Anglesey to move forward with the development of the Parys Mountain project at no direct cash cost to Anglesey or dilution of its shareholders.”

A scoping report, prepared in July 2017 by Micon International, envisaged a mining rate of 1,000 tonnes per day, to produce an average annual output of 14,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate at 57% Zn, 7,200 tonnes of lead concentrate at 52% Pb and 4,000 tonnes of copper concentrate at 25% Cu, over an initial mine life of eight years. The 2017 study was based on mining only the 2.1 million tonnes of indicated resources reported by Micon in 2012. Micon had reported a further 4.1 million tonnes of inferred resources which were not incorporated into the Scoping Study.

Sean Finlay, Director Geoscience Ireland, said “I am delighted to see this collaboration agreement; QME has a strong history in the sector and is currently delivering expert contract mining to the Boliden Tara Mine which is Europes largest zinc mine. We wish Anglesey Mining every success in developing its Parys Mountain project.”

QME joined Geoscience Ireland in 2012 and is active in Ireland, the UK and Canada; see Anglesey Mining’s full statement here.