3rd Jul 2015 06:53
LONDON (Alliance News) - Central Asia Metals PLC Friday confirmed it has lowered its full-year production guidance due to the mechanical incident at the Kounrad plant, but said first half production still rose.
The copper miner operating in Kazakhstan and Mongolia said full-year production is now expected to be around 12,000 tonnes of copper, compared to its original aim to produce 13,000 tonnes. That revision comes after the Kounrad copper recovery plant in Kazakhstan was snagged by mechanical problems at the end of June.
The problem occurred with the solvent-extraction section of the plant, which resulted in a "significant quantity" of organic inventory being lost "within a very short time frame". Central Asia had already warned at the time of the incident that full-year production would be affected.
The plant is currently only running at 45% capacity following the incident and orders for the replacement organic inventory have already been placed and are expected to be delivered to site by the middle of August, said Central Asia.
"Following their arrival they will be added to the SX circuit, after which the dump leaching process will need to reach pre-incident flow rates, which are more than double the current level. Management anticipate that the overall circuit will be back at design capacity by the beginning of September," said the company in a statement.
On Friday, the company also said first half production was up 6.9% year-on-year to 5,444 tonnes of cathode copper. The increase was mainly due to the expanded boiler-house capacity at the plant resulting in higher solution volume treatment rates during the winter months, it said.
Sales in the first half also rose to 5,120 tonnes from 4,674 tonnes, representing a 9.5% lift.
Central Asia said at the time of the incident that it would be investigating the cause of the problem, but did not provide any update on this Friday.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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