Rambler Metals and Mining plc announced that its 100% owned Ming Copper and Gold Mine officially declared commercial production commenced on November 1st 2012. In addition, Transamine Trading SA has been advised of load readiness for its first shipment of copper concentrate.
Project Update Highlights;
1. Commercial Production for the Ming Mine has been defined as the period following commissioning with the mill running at 85% of designed production for a period of 60 continuous days. The operation achieved this milestone during October's production month. Therefore, the Company has decided to declare Commercial Production effective November 1st 2012 which is also the start of its Q2 2013 reporting period.
2. The Company has concurrently provided Transamine a notice of Load Readiness for the first shipment of copper concentrate from Goodyear's Cove. The vessel is expected to call port in the next 30 to 45 days.
3. Upon arrival of the vessel, the Company expects to ship between 9,000 WMT and 10,000 WMT of copper concentrate.
4. Since beginning copper production in May 2012, 7,300 WMT of concentrate have been produced averaging 27% copper, 6 gram per tonne gold and 49 gram per tonne silver of which 6,225 WMT have been invoiced to Transamine at average provisional pricing of US USD 3.52per pound copper, USD 1,669 per ounce gold and USD 30.47 per ounce silver, generating USD 12.5 million in revenue.
4. Milling recoveries have been steady, averaging 90% copper and 65% for gold. During a scheduled shutdown in September, the Company finalized preparations to begin reprocessing floatation tailings through the CIP circuit to try and improve gold recovery to 85%. Testing for this is expected to begin before the end of the calendar year.
5. Development headings into the 1807 Zone are continuing on multiple fronts. Development and run of mine head grades have been steadily increasing as thicker parts of the ore body are accessed. Over the last two weeks mill head grades have been averaging 4.5% copper with 1.7 gram per tonne gold.
Mr George Ogilvie president and CEO of Rambler said that "The last 12 months have been transformational for the Company as we have transitioned ourselves through construction, development, commissioning production ramp up and now finally into commercial production. Shortly, the Company will be providing guidance to the market on key production and financial indicators for the remainder of fiscal 2013, now that commercial production has been attained. Going forward we will now look to strengthen our cash position through free cash flow from operations.”
Mr Ogilvie said that during our first year in operation, calendar 2013, we believe that the repayment of debt to be of paramount importance in these turbulent markets. A portion of free cash will specifically be used to re pay the Sprott USD 7.5 million debt under an existing credit facility. Shortly we will also begin processing tailings from the copper flotation circuit prior to discharge into the tailings pond. In laboratory tests this process opportunity increased gold recovery from 66% to 85%. The field trial makes economic sense particularly in a robust gold price environment. Now that we are in production this is just one of many opportunities that we intend to exploit over the coming months.
Source - Rambler Metals and Mining
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