MOUNT Isa Mines production of copper anode, gold, lead and silver dropped in the second quarter of the year.
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A Glencore spokesperson attributed decreases of copper, gold and silver in the second quarter to the copper smelter being offline.
“The $30 million rebricking project commenced on May 28 and took approximately one month to complete,” the spokesperson said.
According to Glencore’s Half-Year Production Report, lead production at Mount Isa Mines was 47.2kt in the first quarter, but dropped to 39kt in the second quarter.
Copper anode dropped from 54.7kt in the first quarter to 38.9kt in the second quarter.
Gold anode decreased from 15koz to 12koz, but production in the half year increased
50 per cent compared to the same period in 2013.
A fire in the lead smelter baghouse, and a halt in in operations while the company searched for a missing mines employee happened in the last fortnight of the second quarter, and was not attributed to loss of production in the report or by the Glencore spokesperson.
However, despite the poor quarter, production has generally increased compared to the same six month period last year. Mount Isa’s Lady Loretta and Black Star site expansions contributed to Glencore’s 9 per cent increase in Australian lead production in the half year, the report said.
Mount Isa Mines was also to keep the amount of Glencore’s Australian zinc production to the same as last year, despite reductions at Glencore’s McArthur River’s site.
The Glencore spokesperson said increases in Mount Isa Mines production was; “largely attributable to the $589 million Ernest Henry Mining Underground project coming online, and the ramping up of production at our high-grade zinc-lead Lady Loretta operation.”
The spokesperson said mining at Black Star Open Cut started in an area of higher grade ore which resulted in stronger production rates.
Lady Loretta is ramping up production from about 90,000 tonnes a month to 965,000 a month.
It will achieve a full annual production rate of 1.6 million tonnes a year by the end of the first quarter in 2015, the spokesperson said.
The company was able to deviate from the original mine plan for Lady Loretta by extracting ore from the upper levels of the mine.
This allowed the operation to produce a stream of economically viable material earlier than planned before waiting for the mine’s infrastructure to be completed, the spokesperson said.