Iron-ore miner Champion Iron is pushing the boundaries at its Bloom Lake mine, in Canada, to cash in on the favourable pricing environment for the high-grade ore that the mine in the Fermont region of Quebec produces.

Bloom Lake delivered its highest-ever quarterly production of 1.99-million wet metric tonnes of 66.2% grade iron and achieved its highest quarterly recovery, since commissioning in 2010, of 82.1%, the TSX- and ASX-listed miner reported on Wednesday.

Aided by higher volumes and a premium over the benchmark iron-ore price, Champion boosted its revenue by 50% to C$227.9-million in the first quarter of the 2020 financial year, compared with C$150.7-million during the same period of the prior year.

The company achieved a gross sales price of $129 a dry metric ton in the quarter, which is a premium of 17% over the benchmark P62 price and a premium of 19% in the previous quarter, as prices strengthened. It obtained an average net realised price of $109.6/t for iron-ore delivered to the end customer.

Net income surged to C$74.2-million, compared with C$20.7-million in the same period, and attributable earnings a share increased to C$0.09 a share, from C$0.03 a share.

CEO David Cataford said the company was “extremely pleased” with the performance of the operations team, which managed to set the new quarterly record during a period that was impacted by a major planned shutdown.

He added that Champion, which remained unhedged, had optimised operations to increase the short-term mine and plant reliability to achieve maximum benefit while the pricing environment remained favourable.

“This initiative also allowed our team to push boundaries of Bloom Lake and further identify bottlenecks, which could eventually provide further organic growth to the company,” Cataford noted.

Champion is working on a potential Phase 2 of Bloom Lake and released the results of a feasibility study during the quarter under review. The study envisions doubling Bloom Lake’s overall capacity from 7.4-million tonnes a year to 15-million tonnes a year of 66.2% iron content concentrate.

The miner has made available a C$68-million budget to advance the project during the remainder of the year.