Capstone’s chief govt John MacKenzie stated the primary saleable copper focus manufacturing at MVDP represents “a major milestone” for his firm, including that the mine stays on observe and on funds with its earlier steerage.
The MVDP is designed to broaden on the mine’s current manufacturing from roughly 35,000 tonnes of copper (cathodes solely) to a run-rate of roughly 120,000 tonnes. That is anticipated to happen someday within the third quarter of 2024, Capstone has stated.
This enlargement required a brand new plant to course of sulphide materials from the open pits into copper concentrates; beforehand, the Mantoverde operation solely processed oxide ores. The concentrator plant was accomplished in late 2023, with the entire challenge costing $870 million.
Total, the MVDP is predicted to allow the mine to course of 236 million tonnes of copper sulphide reserves, which characterize roughly 20% of complete sulphide assets, along with the present oxide reserves, over a 20-year life.
In the meantime, the corporate can also be analyzing an optimization of the sulphide concentrator to maintain a mean annual throughput of as much as 45,000 tonnes per day (present capability is 32,000 tonnes per day). A feasibility examine for the optimized challenge is predicted in Q3.
Shares of Capstone Copper traded at C$9.66 apiece by 11:40 a.m. ET for a 3.6% acquire. The Americas-focused copper miner has a market capitalization of C$7.3 billion ($5.3bn).