PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior copper developer Metallum was hoping to increase output from its San Sebastian operation, in Chile, within the next six to eight weeks.
Metallum took full ownership of the project in December, with the project covering about 50 ha adjoining its existing El Roble project area. Since then, the company has delivered over 700 t of copper-bearing material, which has been processed at the ENAMI processing plant, in Copiapó.
A further 800 t of high-grade material has also been stockpiled and would be trucked.
Metallum pointed out that to date, the average grade of all material processed had been 4.72% copper, which was well above the expected grade of 3%.
Material was being sourced from the installation of three in-vein access shafts at the San Sebastian mine, at a rate of between 60 t/d and 100 t/d. Once the access shafts were completed, full production stoping would start.
“San Sebastian is continuing to deliver very impressive grades and it is a credit to our team on site to be able to extract material at a modest rate from the access shafts only,” said MD Zeff Reeves.
“The next step at San Sebastian, once the access shafts have been broken through, is to begin stoping the entire panel from the bottom up, and when this starts, we will see a steady increase in tonnes over the next six to eight weeks.”
Reeves noted that the grade and width continuity within the stoping panel was very encouraging, and boded well for mining activities at the operation.
“With the much higher-than-expected grades coming from San Sebastian, and with Paraguay beginning to contribute some tonnage, the company is progressing towards achieving its goal of becoming cash flow positive,” he added.