Adriatic Metals gets green light for new dry-stack tailings facility

Europe-focused Adriatic Metals (ASX: ADT; LSE: ADT1) has received government approval to begin building a mining waste storage facility for its Vares silver mine at the Veovaca site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The permit allows the company to begin the disposing of tailings by December 2024. It comes after a July court decision that restricted Adriatic’s use of state forest land for storing mining waste. 

The company chose an alternative site at the former Veovaca open-pit mine, about 2 km from the Vares processing plant, where Adriatic has full ownership rights.

The approved facility will employ a dry stack method, which stores solid tailings without requiring a liquid reservoir, and is regarded as a safer and more stable approach compared to conventional tailings ponds.

The Veovaca tailings storage facility (TSF) will be built in two phases, with the first designed to handle four to five years of production waste. This initial stage is projected to cost US$5 million and should be completed by the end of the year.

Adriatic’s current tailing storage facility has a maximum capacity of around 133,000 tonnes, which is projected to be sufficient for the first one to two months of 2025. Adriatic plans to complete the initial construction phase of the Veovaca TSF before that to ensure no impact on production or the current ramp up to commercial production, the company said.

Vares began production early this year, becoming Europe’s first new mine in over a decade. The newly named chief executive officer, Laura Tyler, said in early October the operation was in the final phase of reaching nameplate processing capacity of 800,000 tonnes.

In 2023, Adriatic contributed nearly 22% of foreign direct investment into Bosnia and 2% of its GDP. The miner deployed 69% of total capital domestically, the equivalent of $155 million, across 739 companies.

Shares in Adriatic Metals climbed on the news in both Sydney and London. In Australia, they closed up more than 4% to A$4.30 each. In the U.K., the stock was up 3.7% at 221p by 2 p.m. local time, leaving the miner with a market capitalization of £720 million (US$935 million).