Empire Mining to mine Albanian chrome area

TIRANA, September 10 – Canada’s Empire Mining will start mining next year what appear to be viable reserves of rich chrome ore at the Bulqiza mine northeast of Albania’s capital Tirana, its chief executive officer told Reuters Friday.
Empire Mining had examined Albanian government data and found there were potentially very significant extensions to the Bulqiza chrome ore body, which has historically produced more than 20 million tonnes of chromite.
Until Albania’s Communist regime fell in 1990, the Bulqiza and Batra mines accounted for the bulk of the chrome output when Albania was the world’s third largest chrome exporter.
David Cliff, Empire Mining’s chief executive officer and president, told Reuters the reserves were at accessible depth, and close to some existing underground infrastructure, which amounted to “quite an important breakthrough.”
“We believe there is going to be enough there to support a mining operation in the future,” Cliff said in an interview.
But the complication of the structure meant Empire will skip conventional mining operations and instead drill from existing underground structures to understand the best way of mining the chromite.