PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian nickel miner Mincor on Tuesday announced a revised mining plan at its operations in the Kambalda nickel district of Western Australia, which would lower capital spend and make about 50 positions redundant.

In response to the ongoing weakness in the nickel price, Mincor said it would suspend capital development at the Miitel mine, after already having stopped capital spend at the Mariners mine.

The company would proceed with stoping-only operations at both mines, and as a result was expecting to produce about 120 000 t of ore, at a grade of 2.8% nickel between June and November this year, allowing it to achieve a full-year production of 8 500 t, which was within its previously stated guidance.

“Our revised mining plan will optimise cash flows and allow us to rebuild production at both mines in due course, while giving us the scope to complete the drilling and evaluation of our four exciting new growth projects,” said Mincor MD David Moore.

“Based on our strong ore reserve positions and these new discoveries, the future outlook for Mincor remains compelling. The consensus forecast for the nickel price is very strong and the changes announced will give us a solid foundation on which to build our next decade of profitable nickel mining in Kambalda.”

Moore noted that the new mining plan would necessitate around 50 redundancies from the current workforce.

Mincor was expected to review operations at Miitel and Mariners through the second half of the year, in light of the prevailing nickel price, with a view of either restarting capital development and ramping-up production from those mines, or reducing production after November to focus on the development of the growth projects at Burnett, Cassini, Voyce and Durkin.

Detailed resource modellng was currently under way at Voyce, Durkin and Burnett, while Cassini was undergoing conceptual scoping studies in order to determine drilling priorities for the restart of diamond drilling.

In addition, planning for an aircore drilling programme over the unexplored northern half of the Cassini magnetic anomaly was also advancing.