TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – British Columbia-focused miner Copper Mountain Mining on Monday posted adjusted earnings of C$1.52-million, or C$0.02 a share, beating analyst expectations of earnings of C$0.01 a share.

Analysts had, on average, expected revenues of C$51.42-million; however, the company recorded revenues of C$45.69-million for the quarter ended June 30, which was 25% lower year-on-year when compared with C$60.72-million.

The company reported a net loss of C$12.08-million, or C$0.15 a share, wider than the C$2.16-million loss the company recorded in the same period a year earlier.

Total costs were $2.32/lb of copper sold, net of precious metal credits and after all offsite charges, and was 22% higher year-on-year. The average realised copper price for the period was $3.18/lb.

Sales for the quarter were 14.7-million pounds of copper, 5 400 oz of gold and 66 000 oz of silver, generating adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of C$10.6-million for the quarter.

Global copper prices had fallen about 13% this year, amid concerns that efforts to keep China's economy from overheating would curb metals demand. Second-quarter copper prices for 2013 dropped 8.3% year-on-year.

During the second quarter, copper prices varied between $3.01/lb and $3.42/lb, mainly owing to the US's slow economic recovery, the continuing eurozone recession and China's recent economic growth slowdown.

Copper Mountain’s year-on-year copper output declined 5% to 15.7-million pounds, gold output was down 24% to 5 600 oz and silver output was down 37% to 71 000 oz.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the company had lifted copper output by 10.5% and slightly increased gold output and silver production.

The new high-energy blasting and contract crushing, ahead of the semiautogenous grinding (SAG) mill, led to the production improvements; however, the company said the operational improvements were expected to be better reflected in the third quarter.

Copper Mountain had officially approved the installation of a permanent SAG mill precrusher, and the company continued to work with its joint venture partner Mitsubishi Materials and lenders to obtain agreements to advance the mini expansion.

During the period, the mine shipped 28 200 wet metric tonnes of concentrate, containing about 14.7-million pounds of copper, 5 500 oz of gold and 66 000 oz of silver, which generated about C$53.3-million in gross revenue.

The mill processed a total of 2.5-million tonnes of ore at an average grade of 0.33% copper during the quarter, compared with 2.2-million tonnes in the first quarter. Mill recoveries were 87.3%, compared with 82.7% for the first quarter.

Mining activities continued from the Pit 2 and Pit 3 areas and averaged about 171 000 t/d. During the quarter, a total of 15.6-million tonnes of material was mined, including 4.4-million tonnes of ore and 10.4-million tonnes of waste. The projected life-of-mine strip ratio was 2:1, but higher in the early years.

Copper Mountain was now expecting 2013 production to total about 65-million to 70-million pounds of copper, 28 000 oz to 30 000 oz of gold and 255 000 oz to 275 000 oz of silver.

President and CEO Jim O'Rourke said that despite the SAG mill throughput challenging the company for longer than it had expected following the start-up period, management was confident that recently implemented modifications would provide short-term improvements while the longer-term solutions were implemented.

“We are cash flow positive and we will continue to improve the operation as we increase the amount of minus two-inch ore in the SAG mill feed that will allow us to meet our production goals,” he said.

Shareholders responded positively to the earnings report, lifting the company’s share price on the TSX by 5.66% to C$1.68 apiece on Monday morning.