Mining Intelligence and News
Canada

Tanco (Bernic Lake) Mine

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Categories

Summary

Mine TypeUnderground
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Lithium
  • Spodumene
  • Cesium
  • Tantalum
Mining Method
  • Room-and-pillar
  • Longhole stoping
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SnapshotTanco is a world-renowned LCT pegmatite (Lithium, Cesium, and Tantalum) that has been in continuous commercial operation for over 50 years. Over the years, the property has produced tin, tantalum, cesium, lithium, and rubidium.

From 1987 to 2009, Tanco Mine was actively engaged in lithium ore mining. In 2021, the mine resumed production, focusing on lithium spodumene concentrate.

In addition, Sinomine currently extracts small amounts of cesium underground at Tanco and has plans to expand its cesium production in the future.

In February 2023, Sinomine’s board approved investments for a new mineral processing project at the Tanco Mine, with a capacity of 1 Mtpa. Throughout 2023, Sinomine worked on designing the processing plant and preparing for the state environmental impact assessment and approval.

Sinomine is also promoting plans for open-pit mining, which is expected to increase the volume of lithium resources at the Tanco Mine.

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Tantalum Mining Corporation of Canada Ltd. (operator) 100 % Direct
Sinomine Resource Group Co., Ltd. 100 % Indirect
In 2021, Sinomine Resource Group Co., Ltd. acquired the Tanco Mine. The mine is owned and operated by Tantalum Mining Corporation of Canada Limited, a division of the North American Business Unit owned by Sinomine Rare Metals Resource Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the publicly traded, non-governmental Sinomine Resources Group.

Contractors

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Deposit type

  • Pegmatite

Summary:

The Tanco pegmatite is part of the Winnipeg River-Cat Lake pegmatite field. This vast pegmatite field has been subdivided into two pegmatite districts, and subsequently into several different pegmatite groups according to their mineralogy, geochemistry, and location (Cerný et al., 1981).

The Bernic Lake pegmatite group (which includes the Tanco pegmatite) is located in the Bird River greenstone belt, which is part of the Archean Superior Province. The Bird River greenstone belt has been historically described as a large, synclinal keel (Trueman, 1980; Cerný et al., 1981); however, mapping by the Manitoba Geological Survey has led to a re-interpretation of the volcanostratigraphic framework of the belt (Gilbert, 2006; Gilbert, 2007; Gilbert et al., 2008). Gilbert (2008) has subdivided the southern part of the Bird River greenstone belt into two distinct (northern and southern) panels, both of which are composed of ca. 2.75-2.72 Ga juvenile, arc-type metavolcanic and associated metasedimentary rocks. These two metavolcanics panels are separated by the fault bounded enclave of the Booster Lake Formation (<2712 ± 17 Ma, Gilbert, 2006), a turbiditic sequence with classic Bouma-type features, penecontemporaneous with clastic sedimentary rocks of the Flanders Lake Formation (Gilbert, 2006).

The Tanco pegmatite
The Tanco pegmatite is a sub horizontal, essentially undeformed, bilobate, saddleshaped body. The pegmatite is about 1520 m long, 1060 m wide, and up to ~100 m thick, thinning toward the edges. The volume of the pegmatite has been estimated as ~21,850,000 m3 , the mass is ~57,430,000 tonnes, and its average density is 2.63 g/cm3 (Stilling et al., 2006). It occurs mostly under Bernic Lake in southeastern Manitoba and has only been examined by drill core and underground mining exposures.

Zoning of the Tanco pegmatite
The Tanco pegmatite is a classic example of a complexly zoned pegmatite. In each of the different zones it is possible to find the different combinations of minerals in association including the ones containing the elements of economic interest: Ta, Li, and Cs. The zonation consists of nine discrete zones. The zones are substantive enough and distinct enough to be mapped but also individually characterized for mining purposes. The outer zones are concentric, whereas the inner zones are layered segments that are locally complex in shape.

Mineralogy
Mineralogy from Tanco is very diverse with more than 100 contained minerals listed in the literature (e.g. Cerný et al., 1996; 1998). Tanco has yielded four holotypes of new minerals: cernýte (Kissin et al,. 1978), tancoite (Ramik et al,. 1980), diomignite (London et al., 1987), titanowodginite (Ercit et al., 1992), Ercitite (Fransolet et al., 2000), Groatite (Cooper et al., 2009).

Geochemistry
The Tanco pegmatite is a mineralized, peraluminous pegmatite body, belonging to the LCT family, Rare-Element-Li subclass, complex type, subtype petalite (classification by Cerný and Ercit, 2005).

The bulk mode of Tanco is close to a muscovite granite, with the exception of 8 wt.% petalite, 2.8 wt.% lithian micas, and 1 wt.% primary spodumene. The contents of all other accessory silicates and phosphates are only in tenths of a wt.%, and minerals of the highfield-strength elements account for mere hundredths to thousandths of a wt.% each. Accordingly, the bulk chemical composition of the pegmatite corresponds to that of a peraluminous, moderately silicic, high-phosphorus, Na>K granite, with enrichment in Li, Rb, Cs and F; moderate contents of Tl, Be, B, Ga, Sn, Nb and Ta, and remarkable depletion in Fe, Mn, Mg, Ca, Ba, Sc, Ti and Zr. A very high degree of fractionation is shown for the bulk pegmatite by the values K/Rb 4.7, K/Cs 9.3, Rb/Cs 2.0, Rb/Tl 137, Fe/Mn 0.63, Mg/Li 0.02, Al/Ga 917, Zr/Hf 2.6, Zr/Sn 0.21 and Nb/Ta 0.19 (Stilling et al., 2006).

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Heavy Mobile Equipment

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Commodity Production

2021 Production of Spodumene - from mid-October 2021.
CommodityProductUnits202320222021
Spodumene Concentrate kt  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe
Li2O t  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe

Operational metrics

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Production Costs

Commodity production costs have not been reported.

Personnel

Mine Management

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Workforce

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