Hindustan Zinc Ltd, the country’s largest zinc producer, has added 33.7 million tonnes through ongoing exploration activities to its existing reserves and resources, prior to depletion of 7.1 million tonnes in financial year 2010. Contained zinc-lead metal has increased by 3.4 million tonnes, prior to a depletion of 0.77 million tonnes during the same period.
Total reserves (proved and probable) and resources (measured, indicated and inferred) at March 31, 2010 were thus, increased to 298.6 million tonnes containing 34.1 million tonnes of zinc-lead metal. The reserves and resources position has been independently reviewed and certified as per JORC standard.
In FY 2010, a total of 59,200 metres of drilling was carried out. The success of exploration efforts has been primarily at Rajpur Dariba and Sindesar Khurd mines where the company has no established a combined reserve and resource base of 103 million tonnes (FY 2009 : 83.4 million tonnes).
The reserve and resource base of Rajpur Dariba mine is increased by 15.4 million tonnes to 42.2 million tonnes an that of Sindesar Khurd mine by 4.2 million tonnes to 60.8 million tonnes during the year.
