Brazilian miner Mineraçao Caraíba plans to increase throughput at its Pilar underground copper sulfide mine in Bahia state to 900,000 tonne per year in 2016.

Mr Sérgio Fráguas CEO of Mineraçao Caraíba said that "We have a project to deepen Pilar mine from the current 850 meters to 1,600 meters with focus on increasing the copper sulfide ore throughout from the 650,000 tonne per year achieved in 2008 to 900,000 tonne per year ROM in 2016."

Mineraçao Caraíba also owns the underground Caraíba mine with installed capacity of 1.20 million tonne per year of copper sulfide ore and the open pit Surubim mine with installed capacity of 1.60 million tonne per year. The mines started operations in June 2010.

Mr Fráguas said that "Our Caraíba processing plant has [throughput] production capacity of 3.5 million tonne per year and generates 30,000 tonne of copper. Also our oxide ore plant has production capacity of 5,000 tonne per year of copper cathode."

The company also owns the Boa Esperança project in Pará state which has a planned capacity of 4.20 million tonne per year of copper sulfide ore and is expected to start operations in 2014.

Mineração Caraíba acquired the Boa Esperança copper deposit in October 2007 for more than USD 80 million from Chilean state owned red metal company Codelco.

Mineração Caraíba was privatized in 1994 and is controlled by diversified group Aurizônia Empreendimentos and Anaconda Group LLC which hold a 28.3% stake each in the Brazilian miner.

(Sourced from Business News Americas)