Silvertip Mine

JDS Silver purchased the Silvertip Pb-Zn-Ag project from Silvercorp in late 2013 and completed a PEA outlining a 1,000 tpd operation mining 1.4M tonnes at 365 g/t silver, 0.5 g/t gold, 7.2% lead, and 8.7% zinc. JDS constructed the mine in just 10 months from December 2015, utilizing the purchased Sa Dena Hes crusher/processing plant augmented with a paste plant from Diavik.

Infrastructure included 120' bridge, 26km access road upgrades, 150-bed camp, 640 foundation piles, 3,000 m³ concrete, 2,000 m² mill building, 7.5MW LNG powerplant, 150 m³/hr water treatment plant, 12,000 m² ponds, dry stack tailings facility, in-valley leach pad, and 26,000 m³ event pond. Primary equipment (150hp jaw crusher, 1,000hp SAG mill, 900hp ball mill, flotation cells, paste plant) was purchased used, transported (190 loads), and refurbished on-site. JDS provided underground startup support including shotcreting, CRF, services, and dewatering. The project was completed safely with 256,043 hours worked and zero LTIs, on budget and on schedule.