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2012, December 7. Lepanto
Consolidated Mining Corporation - 75th Anniversary
Litho Offset.
Amstar Company, Inc. Perf 14
Se-tenant Pairs, Sheets of 40
Se-tenant Pairs (55,500)
7p
Reforestation
7p Underground Mining
Design Coordinator: Linda P. Castillo, LCMC
Layout Artist: Victorino Serevo
First Day Covers: Manila
LEPANTO CONSOLIDATED MINING CORPORATION
- 75th ANNIVERSARY
Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company was established in 1936.
The year 2011 marks the
company's 75th anniversary in the business.
Lepanto is a
Filipino primary gold producer. The Lepanto mines are located in
Mankayan, Benguet where the Company has about a thousand employees.
Copper mining was known to have taken place at Lepanto as early as
the Ming Dynasty. Chinese traders at that time exchanged their wares
for copper ingots.
When the Spanish conquistadores arrived
in the 16th century, the natives attracted their attention to the
extensive use of copper. However, hostile natives kept the district
blockaded for many years. The opposition to the Spaniards was very
much like their encounter with the Ottoman Turks in the "Battle of
Lepanto" in 1571; thus, the Spaniards named the place Lepanto.
The Cantabro-Filipino Company under the direction of Don Jose
Maria Santos started exploiting the copper deposits from 1864 to
1874. When he died a year later, the Spanish operation ceased.
At the turn of the 19th century, the Americans started
prospecting in the Lepanto area. Various prospectors pooled their
holdings and in September 1936, the Lepanto Consolidated Mining
Company was born.
During the Second World War, the Mitsui
Company of Japan operated the mine at a rate twice the pre-war
capacity. After the war, the
underground mine and mill facilities were rehabilitated and
operations resumed in 1947.
The copper concentrate
produced were shipped
exclusively to ASARCO's Tacoma smelter, then the only smelter in the
world that could handle Lepanto's concentrate which contained
arsenic.
To access the lower levels of the Enargite Mine,
the Tubo Shaft Project was undertaken and was completed in November
1977 by an all-Filipino crew. The Tubo Shaft significantly increased
the life of the mine and the ore grade and improved ventilation in
the working areas.
Anticipating the closure of the ASARCO
smelter in 1985, the Company built a 50,000-t/a Roaster Plant in
1982, designed to reduce the arsenic content of the copper
concentrate. Since PASAR was going to buy most of the roasted copper
concentrate, called Calcine, the Roaster was built next to the PASAR
facilities in Isabel, Leyte.
Marketing problems associated
with the arsenic content of the copper concentrate and the declining
copper price made copper operations very challenging in 1995 and
1996. The discovery of the Victoria in 1995 was therefore very
timely, prompting Lepanto to immediately develop the orebody and
prepare for gold operations.
During the period 1948 to 1996,
the Enargite operations produced 1.58 billion pounds of copper, 2.9
million oz of gold and 12.0 million oz of silver, recovered from
34.4 Mt of ore averaging 2.2% Cu and 3.5 g/t Au.
When the
Victoria deposit was discovered in September 1995, the exploration
and mine development work shifted from the Enargite deposit to the
Victoria. In preparation for the milling of the gold ore, the copper
flotation circuit was shut down on January 31, 1997. The new P135
million (US$5 M) 2500-t/d carbon-in-pulp or CIP plant was
commissioned on March 16, 1997.
During the first three years
of gold operations, the Victoria was accessed through the same
infrastructures utilized for the old Enargite mine, principally the
Tubo Shaft. To provide easier access to the Victoria and improve
ventilation, the Nayak Twin Decline project was started in July
1998. Two declines stretching 1 kilometer from the surface to the
1150L and an internal shaft were constructed in the Nayak Area. The
project was completed in April 2000 at a cost of P675 million
(M$15.0).
In 2000, a state-of-the art flotation circuit was
built at a cost of P125 million (US$3.0 M) to handle the high-copper
gold ore. The plant was commissioned in May and commercial
production started in June 2000. After a year of operations and due
to the very low copper price then, copper operations were once again
suspended in late 2001. Copper operations resumed in 2007 as copper
prices improved.
After ten years of operation, the Victoria
had produced about 1.17 million
oz. gold as of the end of 2007.
http://www.lepantomining.com/index.html
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