PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper miner Straits Resources reported record production of 26 422 t during the year ended June 30.
The Tritton copper mine, in New South Wales, exceeded its production expectations of 26 000 t for the full year, Straits said on Thursday.
Copper production for the June quarter reached 6 559 t, which was an improvement on the previous two quarters. Straits reported that the copper grade in the ore improved during the quarter under review, a response to the Tritton mine stop sequence moving as planned into higher grade areas of the orebody, and the North East mine producing its highest grade ore for the financial year.
The company pointed out that the consistency in mill throughput also reflected efforts made earlier in the financial year to improve plant maintenance and throughput rates.
Design work on the next round of plant de-bottlenecking to achieve a targeted throughput rate of 1.8-million tons a year had now started.
For the 2015 financial year, Straits expected to produce about 27 000 t of copper.