As the prices of nonferrous metals and commodities is rising China Shen Zhou Mining & Resources, Inc.has resumed production at its fluorite processing plant at its Xiangzhen Mining Plant, located in Inner Mongolia, and at Xingzhen Mining, located in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Xingzhen Mining restarted its ore dressing plant and began to produce qualified concentrates on June 5, 2009. According to an assay, the concentrates have zinc grade of 51% and copper grade of 24%, with metal recovery rates of over 92% for zinc and 68% for copper. Xingzhen Mining had stopped its production in September 2008 due to the decrease in the prices of nonferrous metals in the market.
Jessica Yu, the company's chairwoman and CEO, stated, that the company had previously arranged full production of drilling, extraction and processing in Xingzhen Mining at its annual meeting and she believed that it was well-prepared for continued production.
In addition, as a result of further trials and technological readjustment, Xiangzhen Mining overcame the bottleneck in processing fluorite powders due to unqualified water sources and produced qualified fluorite powders with an average grade above 96%. The production has had a recovery rate of over 81% since May 18, 2009. The products will be delivered to CNMC NingXia Orient, a strategic partner in Ning Xia Hui Nationality Autonomous Region in western China.