Bolivia's Comibol to restart 3 mine projects by year-end

Bolivia's state mining company Comibol aims to restart three mining projects at the end of the year.

The projects are the La Cruz gold property in Santa Cruz department, the Thuthu zinc-lead-silver orebody in Potosí and the Concordia tin deposit, Comibol said. The projects add to Comibol's plans to reopen the Amayapampa gold mine this month.

La Cruz, where the company has taken 890 samples and diamond drilled 3,000m, has resources of 2.93Mt grading 0.77g/t gold. Thuthu, where the company has taken 522 samples, has 247,056t of 6.78% zinc and 2.9% lead; while Concordia, where Comibol has drilled 4,308m and taken 1,198 samples, has 2.63Mt of 1.03% tin, according to the company's 2015 annual report.

"At the three projects we're talking about small-scale mining of about 200-300t/d," Comibol's CEO Marcelino Quispe said in a statement.

Comibol, which has invested more than US$200mn in exploration over the past decade, will gradually ramp up output at the three properties, Quispe said. Just 40% of Bolivia's potential has been explored, according to Comibol.

Comibol's exploration project portfolio also includes the Santa Isabel zinc-lead-silver property in Potosí, the Pacocahua gallium-zinc-lead project in Oruro, the Porvenir gold-nickel-cobalt property in Santa Cruz, the Chiquitania tin-gold project and the Cerro Manomó uranium property.

Comibol is seeking to revert declining mining export revenue, which fell 26% to US$988mn through July due to slumping metals prices.