Afritin Mining Ltd. said May 28 that it began the phased commissioning of the processing plant at the Uis tin mine in Namibia, which consists of a four-stage crushing circuit and a three-stage concentrating circuit.

The London-listed junior said the commissioning's C4 stage, which involves passing ore material through the circuit, is scheduled for the end of May for the crushing circuit and the end of June for the concentrating circuit.

In the commissioning phase, the plant will produce initial tin concentrate. Hot commissioning and continuous plant operations, however, are now targeted to begin in July, later than the previously scheduled start in the second quarter due to longer-than-expected lead times to procure equipment, material and construction services.

Afritin had flagged a delay in the start of production in February due to additional work at the phase-one processing plant.

Production ramp-up is expected to take place over four months, with the aim of achieving design capacity before the fourth quarter.

First ore was mined at Uis in December 2018. Lithium mineralization in pegmatites was discovered in the ML 133 license, and Afritin is planning further work to determine the economics of exploiting the lithium.