MELBOURNE, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Australia's Red River Resources RVR.AX said on Friday it plans to restart a monthballed zinc mine in northern Queensland to take advantage of a rise in commodity prices afer successfully raising A$30 million ($22 million) in a placement.
The Thalanga zinc project, which has been on care and maintenance since 2012, will start development work immediately and is expected to return to production by the second half of 2017, Red River said in a statement.
The capital cost of the restart was estimated at A$17.2 million.
The mine will produce 21,400 tonnes of zinc, 3,600 tonnes of copper, 5,000 tonnes of lead, 2,000 ounces of gold and 200,000 ounces in silver in concentrate a year over an initial mine life of five years, it said.
London Metal Exchange zinc prices CMZN3 have more than doubled from the year's lows below $1,445 a tonne to top out at $2,985 a tonne this week. Zinc was last trading at $2,705 a tonne. ($1 = 1.3495 Australian dollars)