EV Resources (ASX:EVR) has successfully tested metallurgical flotation for third-party feedstock at its Tecomatlán Processing Plant in Puebla, with the trial runs showing an 81.1% antimony (Sb) recovery rate using a bulk flotation-led flowsheet and yielding a base concentrate grade of 42.4% Sb.
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Follow-up upgrades also confirmed that EVR can generate a high-grade concentrate of 62.9% Sb, which “exceeds typical commercial smelter specs.”
The evaluation, run by EV Resources through to mid-CY26, directly compared three processing options for the Chinantla material. Bulk flotation has clearly emerged as the best route, significantly outperforming gravity concentration (up to 29.25% recovered) and combined gravity-plus-flotation (74.04%).
The flotation base case was tested on material with a 13.36% Sb head grade; it showed “excellent metallurgical selectivity” by rejecting ~88% of the silica gangue.
The results are a significant technical milestone for the strategy EV Resources has been implementing at Tecomatlán, managing director Mike Brown said today, and give the ASX-listed explorer “real confidence.”
“Achieving 81% antimony recovery and confirming we can produce a commercial-grade concentrate, with a possible optimisation path to 60% antimony, from third-party ore using conventional, well-understood flotation technology, gives us real confidence in the hub-and-spoke model,” he told EVR shareholders.
“Importantly, we expect to be able to execute this plan with minimal additional CAPEX and additional time relative to the Phase One budget and timeline.
“With the commencement of environmental permitting for a flotation circuit, we are methodically de-risking the pathway to processing regional antimony ore at Tecomatlán, at a time of acute global antimony supply constraint.”
The explorer will now truck on into a direct, integrated flotation upgrade path after this two-phase development success. Internal preliminary assessments have indicated that this direct implementation pathway will mean EVR can leverage unutilized, existing flotation infrastructure at the Tecomatlán plant.
HotCopper understands that the Aussie explorer is hoping the strategy will only need low CAPEX and should represent a fraction of the cost needed to construct a new standalone gravity and flotation facility.
The integration of a direct flotation circuit, EVR says, should compress the production pathway timeline to 10 to 12 months to first production.
This schedule will run alongside the environmental permitting process.
EVR will open at 0.8cps today.
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