Anglesey Mining told investors that its 26% owned associate Labrador Iron Mines recognized USD 38 million in iron ore sales in the first quarter. It says three shipments of ore were sold, totaling 486,000 dry tonnes.
It received an average price of USD 122 per tonne and it had operating costs (excluding non recurring charges) of USD 64.5 per tonne.
During the quarter approximately 648,000 tonnes of ore, grading 62.6%, was mined from the James site, one of 21 deposits LIM owns in the Shefferville area. Of that 483,000 tonnes was made up of direct shipping ore.
At the end of the period June 30th 2012, the mine was operating at a rate of 32,000 tonnes per day, including waste, and LIM says this is better than its planned rate of 28,000 tonnes a day.
LIM says it is on track to meet its target of producing 2 million tonnes of saleable iron ore this year. The firm said iron ore spot prices continued to soften throughout the March to June 2012 period and noted that commentators have speculated that the bottom could be reached this quarter.
It said that "LIM believes this is likely and anticipates that prices will recover to the USD 130 to USD 140 range on a CFR China basis later in the year."
On the development front, LIM has been working through the permitting process for its second project, the Houston mine. It is aiming to start work before the end of 2012, which will allow the start up of production in the first half of 2013.
The company also continues its ongoing exploration work, focusing on the Houston 1 and 3 deposits where it hopes to improve the delineation of resources. It intends to complete 10,800 meters of drilling this year.
At Anglesey's project in Wales Parys Mountain, it noted that all three stages of its 2012 drill program at the copper zinc lead project were successful. Micon International has been retained to update the resource estimates for all of Parys Mountain to bring them to JORC. It will also conduct a scoping study for a small scale stand-alone mining operation
After generating revenues of USD 38 million, LIM reported a loss of USD 10.6 million for the quarter, which included a USD 9.8 million amortization charge which was recorded upon the start of full scale commercial production.
It says it invested USD 2.7 million in mineral property interests, and USD 19 million in property and plant equipment. And at the end of the period it has current assets of USD 89 million, including USD 16.5 of inventories. It had unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of USD 22 million and USD 7.6 million in restricted cash.
Source - Proactive Investors
(www.steelguru.com)
