CAYELI

The Çayeli mine is an underground copper and zinc operation in north eastern Turkey.

Overview

Çayeli Bakır is located on the Black Sea coast of north eastern Turkey and operated by Çayeli Bakir Isletmeleri A.S., a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Quantum.

Since 1994, Çayeli Bakır has produced copper and zinc concentrates. It has the capacity to mine and process 1.3 million tonnes of ore per annum.

Çayeli Bakır employs 493 people.

Mining and Processing

Çayeli is a volcanic hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) copper-zinc deposit.

Çayeli’s mine design is based on underground bulk mining methods with the use of delayed backfill to extract ore in a sequential manner.

Ore processing includes three stages of crushing primary and secondary ball mill grinding, conventional flotation using either standard or column cells, and water removal by thickening and pressure filtering to produce copper and zinc concentrates.

Çayeli is the largest underground base metals mine in Turkey and has been producing concentrate for more than 25 years. As a result of First Quantum’s mining and metallurgical experience, Çayeli’s initial design mill capacity has been doubled during the life of the project to reach 1.2 million tonnes per annum.

Outlook

Production is expected to be challenging due to poor ground conditions in the areas planned to be mined, therefore ground stabilization will continue to be critical to achieving the expected production levels as the mine approaches reserve depletion in 2023.

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