Photo by: Reuters
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper miner Tiger Resources produced 1 499 t of copper cathode during its first production quarter, which ended in June.
Copper cathode production started in May this year, at the Stage 2 solvent extraction electrowinning (SX-EW) plant at its Kipoi project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The SX-EW plant was on track to achieve a nameplate capacity of 25 000 t/y of copper cathode in August, Tiger said on Thursday.
During the quarter under review, 281 421 t of material was moved to deliver 177 868 t of high-grade ore averaging 5.2% copper and 22 866 t of medium- and low-grade ore averaging 1.4% copper to the run-of-mine stockpile.
Mining activities have now ceased from the Stage 1 heavy media separation (HMS) pit, and Tiger said that these would only restart in 2016, when the Stage 2 SX-EW operation depleted the current stockpiles.
Meanwhile, copper-in-concentrate production during the quarter under review reached 5 093 t, compared with the 6 518 t produced in the previous quarter, with the lower production owing to a slight decline in head-grade and recovery during the second quarter.
Tiger’s current operating plan was to shut down the production of copper concentrate on the depletion of high sulphur/silica-oxide ore stockpiles during the first quarter of 2015. The HMS plant would then be reconfigured to produce heap leach feed for the SX-EW from the medium-grade stockpile.
The copper miner said that the company would continue to review the HMS plant performance and the reconfiguration to produce heap leach feed for the SX-EW, which could be brought forward to increase copper production and efficiencies, and to improve shareholder returns.