North River Resources, a Namib Lead Zinc Mining Ltd subsidiary, owned the Namib Lead and Zinc Mine.
Bezant Resources has now acquired the mine.
The Namib Lead and Zinc Mine is 30km from Swakopmund and 75km from the port of Walvis Bay.
The mine went into care and maintenance in April 2020 due to deteriorating economic conditions, mainly caused by COVID-19, and retrenched its 400 workers.
The last shipment was done in July 2020 when the Namib Lead Zinc Mining parent company, North River Resources, was placed under administration.
Castlelake Group acquired the project in June 2021 and put the project up for sale in January 2022.
The Castlelake Group has been the 90% shareholder of Namib Lead Zinc Mining since June 2021. The remaining 10% of the share capital was issued to previously disadvantaged Namibians.
The other 5% was issued to the Namib Lead Zinc Mining Employee Benefit Trust, established to benefit Namib Lead Zinc Mining workforce members who qualify as previously disadvantaged Namibians.
The mine has a current JORC resource of 1,12 million tons, resulting in an underground in-situ metal inventory of 25,900 tons of lead, 74,200 tons of zinc, and 66 million ounces of silver.
Historically, the mine produced approximately 700,000 tons of ore, over 100,000 tons of lead and zinc concentrate, and over 1 million ounces of silver.
After net smelter returns, this would have yielded revenues over US$100 million at current commodity prices.
Since the completion of the feasibility study in late 2014, Namib Lead Zinc Mining undertook several optimisation studies to improve the project economics and reduce associated development risks.
These included several programmes of metallurgical testwork and infill diamond drilling to collect fresh ore samples for testing, to understand orebody variability, and to reduce risks in the initial mining period.
The respective consultants made New Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve Statements.
North River Resources produced an updated mine development plan to update the previous feasibility study.
Historically, narrow zones were produced from 1968 to 1991, followed by modern bulk mining and the construction of a new processing and flotation plant.
The mine was built in 2018-2019 and operated until April 2020 before it was placed into care and maintenance due to health and safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Production after the restart in 2019 achieved levels up to 19,000 ore tons per month and 2,000 tons of contained metal per month.
Namib Lead Zinc Mining Ltd owns two exclusive prospective licenses, 2902 and 5075, surrounding the lead and zinc mine site.
Underground mining operations began at the project in 1968. The primary focus was on lead recoveries, while zinc was sent to the tailings. Zinc recovery started in 1974.
Between 1986 and 1991, 356,300 tons of ore were milled at a moderate zinc and lead combined grade of 6.9%.
The mine was closed in 1992 after reaching a depth of 210 metres below the surface.
From 1992 until 1993, Iscor Ltd explored the mine location site.
A group of local geologists was granted an EPL in 2001 primarily to assess tailings processing.
Kalahari Minerals completed a drilling program that resulted in a non-JORC-compliant resource estimate of 612,000 tons at a combined grade of 8.9% between 2007 and 2008.
In 2009, North River Resources acquired the project from Kalahari Minerals through a scrip transaction.
In 2014, North River Resources secured equity funding of up to US$12 million to complete a definitive feasibility study, which revealed a mineral resource estimate of 1.24 Mt of ore.
NRR secured a private placement of unsecured convertible notes for gross proceeds of US$1.2 million in 2015.
NRR secured another 5,6 million in 2016 through the issue of new secured, conditionally convertible title loan notes.
In February 2016, Namib Lead Zinc Mining received a 10-year licence, and the company released an updated JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate of 1,119 million tons.
NRR shareholders approved US$22 million funding for working capital in March 2018.
The Namib Lead Zinc Mining commissioned the plant at 75% of its throughput capacity in April 2019, and production began the following month.
Production was ramped up in September 2019, when Namib Lead Zinc Mining achieved over 8,000 tons milled in August and September.
The processing plant reached a production capacity of 9.88 tons in March 2020.
Ubique Minerals signed a sales and purchase agreement with Castlelake in January 2023.
The agreement with Ubique stated that the transaction would close after Castlelake US Minerals LLC had obtained the necessary regulatory approvals and satisfied other customary closing conditions.
The contract expired in July 2023 when Ubique failed to raise the necessary capital.
By February 2024, Castlelake was still conducting technical due diligence, while the project was under care and maintenance.
