Famous Tungsten Mine - Cantung Mine

World famous tungsten mine - Cantung Mine is a tungsten producer in the Nahanni area of the Northwest Territories, Canada, located northeast of Watson Lake in the Flat River Valley of the Selwyn Range close to the Yukon border. It is the biggest tungsten mine in the world, except for China. 

Cantung Mine produces high quality tungsten scheelite, exploited reserve is 1476 thousand tons, average grade can reach 1.1%. It is tungsten mine with high economic value.

Cantung Mine was found in 1954, operated from 1962 to 1986. It closed due to low tungsten prices in 1986. Again from 2002 to 2003, and reopened in 2005. Production was suspended from October 2009 to October 2010, and the operation has remained in continuous to the present day. Daily operating amount is 1350 tons.

The mine consists of both open pit and underground operations, which extract ore from a scheelite-chalcopyrite bearing skarn. The skarn deposit formed as a replacement to the Ore Limestone and Swiss Cheese Limestone units located on the property.

Production occurs from the seasonally operated open pit and the continuously operating underground mine. The mine currently produces ore at a rate of 1,350 dry short tons per day. Mineral Reserves support a mine life to at least 2017. The primary mining method is sub-level longhole stoping with delayed backfill. Currently longhole methods are planned for the majority of the remaining reserves with cut and fill being employed in areas where the ore zone is too narrow for efficient longhole mining.

Processing is carried out by gravity and flotation circuits. Final products include a premium gravity concentrate (G1), containing on average, 65% WO3; a flotation concentrate containing, on average, 35% WO3 and a copper concentrate averaging 28% Cu.

Exploration on the property continues with both in-mine and near-mine exploration programs underway. This has been successful in defining additional ore sources and adding mineral resources and reserves.

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