Thaindian News

Udaipur (Rajasthan), April 17 (IANS) Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) Thursday announced that its ongoing exploration activities had yielded significant success with an increase of 28.7 million tonnes to its reserves and resources, prior to a depletion of 5.8 million tonnes in 2007-08. HZL is India’s leading integrated producer of zinc and lead. Its metal production capacity is nearly 670,000 tonne per annum with its smelter operations located in Rajasthan’s Chanderiya and Debari and in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam.

HZL has zinc-lead mines in Rajasthan’s Dariba, Rampura Agucha, Sindesar Khurd and Zawar.

Contained zinc-lead metal has increased by 4 million tonnes, prior to a depletion of 0.6 million tonnes during the same period, the company said in a statement.

Total reserves and resources at March 31, 2008 were 232.3 million tonnes containing 27.5 million tonnes of zinc-lead metal.

The reserves and resources position has been independently reviewed and certified as per Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) standard.

“The success of exploration has primarily been in the Sindesar Khurd and Rampura Agucha mines near Udaipur in Rajasthan. The sustained exploration and aggressive drilling programme at Sindesar Khurd mine has successfully augmented the resource base to the current level of 37 million tonnes, making it the second largest ore body in HZL’s portfolio after Rampura Agucha,” the statement said.

In 2007-08, the drilling programme successfully increased the strike length by 300 metres to 1,600 metres, averaging 5.8 percent zinc, 3.8 percent lead and 215 parts per million silver.

At Rampura Agucha, 28,000 metres of drilling in 32 holes were carried out to outline mineralisation below a depth of 550 metres. The combined reserves and resources at Rampura Agucha alone have been augmented to 107.3 million tonnes at March 31, achieving the landmark of crossing 100 million tonnes in reserves and resources.

HZL has dynamically increased its exploration focus, through a team of 40 geologists employing the latest geophysical, geochemical and GIS technologies and high-speed deep drilling equipment. This has resulted in an addition of 110.7 million tonnes of reserves and resources, before depletion of 22.1 million tonnes, in the period from April 2003 to March 2008.