TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-listed Copper Mountain Mining on Tuesday said that construction of the new permanent secondary crusher at the Copper Mountain mine, located in southern British Columbia, continued to move forward as planned and on schedule, and orders for all of the major mechanical and electrical components had been placed.

The Vancouver-based company said that the main components of the crusher had arrived in Canada and had been railed to Kamloops, where they were being prepared for transport by a specialised truck to the mine site.

Among these components counted the lower bowl assembly, which is the largest component of the crusher and weighs more than 100 t. Owing to its size and weight, special road permits were provided by the Department of Transportation in a timely manner to meet the schedule for the highway transportation to the mine site.

These permits were received early last week and the lower bowl assembly had now been transported to the mine site.

The company reported that it had engaged Nickel Bros Heavy Lifting and Transportation to complete this leg of the transportation, which entailed closing the main highway between Kamloops and Princeton in 20 km sections as the convoy moved down the road. It took four nights to make the 200 km trip, because the transportation had to occur between midnight and 5 am each night to reduce traffic disruptions along the route.

This crusher would be the largest cone crusher installed in western Canada and has the ability to crush the 6-inch rock from the primary crusher down to 2 inches in size.

The new crushing facility was designed to operate at a rate of 2 800 t/h.

Foundation work for the crusher slab was complete and was being prepared for placement of the newly arrived lower bowl assembly. Once the lower bowl assembly is installed, building contractors would be mobilised to start the building erection.

Following the building erection, the new conveyor system installation will start in spring.

The total cost of construction for the secondary crusher facility had been estimated at C$40-million and construction was expected to be completed by mid-summer.

Once installed, all of the mill feed would be sized to the 2-inch range, which would allow the mill to operate consistently at or above design capacity rates of 35 000 t/d.

Meanwhile, the short-term mitigating measures implemented in 2013 to increase mill throughput continued to be successful with January and February's operational results being in line with the production expectations, Copper Mountain said.