Central Asia Metals PLC resumed production at its Sasa zinc-lead operation in North Macedonia at half-capacity after recently finishing repairs to a tailings storage facility at the site.

In mid-September, Central Asia Metals reported a "short-term leakage" of tailings from Sasa into a local river. The company had been allowed to restart mining and processing operations after securing approval to temporarily store tailings in a previous storage facility for 10 days, although that permission expired in late September.

The company said Oct. 5 that it received approval Oct. 2 to operate the tailings storage facility, after completing repairs during the prior weekend. It has paid an environmental fine of €65,000 and estimated that the total cost of the disruption, excluding production downtime, will be less than $1.5 million.

As a result of the downtime, Central Asia Metals expects to process a total of 800,000 to 825,000 tonnes of ore in 2020, down from previous guidance of 825,000 to 850,000 tonnes. Production is expected to be within the company's original 2020 guidance range of 23,000 tonnes to 25,000 tonnes of zinc in concentrate and 30,000 tonnes to 32,000 tonnes of lead in concentrate.

Central Asia Metals said Oct. 5 that it expects to receive official clearance to start river cleanup activities within a week, with the bulk of the tailings projected to be removed by the end of 2020. The company said cleanup of a high-priority, 350-meter section of the river was already completed.