Mining licences set to be extended until November 2045 as exploration continues on Tara Deep ore body

Boliden Tara Mines has received a major boost with the news that its mining licences are to be extended until 2045.

The government has indicated that the licences for their mining operations will be renewed until November 2045 - in the past renewals have only been for a 10 year period.

The news is a major boost for the 50 year-old-lead and zinc mine, as exploration continues on the Tara Deep ore body, which is believed to have the capacity to extend the life of the mine for decades.

A delighted Michelle Bennett, general manager of Tara Mines said: "For the first time ever we have got notice that we will have out licences renewed for this mine up until 2045.

We believe the Irish government and the EU are now appreciating the importance of mining in Ireland and across Europe."

Meanwhile, the biggest mining exploration programme in Ireland and one of the largest in the Boliden Group is continuing with a planning application in place to extend an exploration tunnel to the Tara Deep ore body by an addition 3km.

"The exploration team are putting in tremendous effort and working with the local community on an extensive drilling programme in relation to Tara Deep," said Ms Bennett.

"It is important to say that Tara Deep was discovered in 2012. A lot of people have been involved and done amazing work to get where we are today. We are continuing to invest in the exploration programme and I think to date spent north of €100 million.

"We have a current tunnel going out toward that mineralisation.

It is 2km long and we have just applied for planning permission to extend that by another 3km and that will get us closer to that mineralisation.

"It will allow us to do more exploration drilling to understand better the mineralisation.

It is important to note we haven't established if Tara Deep is viable, but we are working hard to make a business case for it.

"There are a lot of factors involved and that includes being able to extract the mineral economically and generate enough revenue to cover the costs of the capital investment required and the operation costs."

She explained "the current inferred resource of Tara deep is 27 million tonnes."

"The government and that includes local authorities, councillors and TDs were very supportive when we had challenges. I have to acknowledge that tremendous support."

The Government appreciates that the supply of critical raw materials in Europe and in Ireland is fundamental to the green transition.

"Zinc is used to galvanise steel for wind turbines and solar panels and without zinc it very difficult to produce renewal sources of energy. Boliden and Tara Mines is very well placed to to support that transition. Lead is also used to store energy in the form of batteries. So everything we are doing here is supporting that transition."

Ms Bennett said that they have not yet received the icences, but have a written commitment from the Department of Climate and the Environment that those licences are on the way.