Champion Iron in November acquired the Kami project, located in the Labrador Trough of Newfoundland.
Dual-listed Champion Iron will be reviewing and revising the feasibility study of the recently acquired Kami project, which is located only a few kilometers south-east of its current Bloom Lake operations.
The revision of the Kami feasibility study will seek to strategically position Champion Iron for growth opportunities, CEO David Cataford said on Wednesday, announcing the group’s third-quarter results.
The acquisition of the Kami project, located in the Labrador Trough in Newfoundland, near the Quebec border, secured Champion an additional eight-million tonnes a year of port capacity, including a pre-payment of port-related fees, at the multi-user berth of the Port of Sept-Îles, which it currently uses to export iron-ore concentrate from Bloom Lake.
Champion reported that its Phase 2 expansion at Bloom Lake, which would double capacity to 15-million tonnes a year of 66.2% iron-ore concentrate, was well under way. On December 23, the company completed an increase of its senior secured credit facilities to $400-million, which together with the cash on hand and ongoing cash flows from operations is expected to fully fund the Phase 2 project, expected to be completed by mid-2022.
Meanwhile, Cataford said that Champion Iron had achieved several record financial results in the third quarter, benefitting from rising iron-ore prices.
Revenue for the three months increased to $329.5-million from $171.1-million for the same period in 2019.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose to a record $211.9-million, from $57.9-million.
Net income surged to $120.8-milion for the three-month period ended December, from $30.2-million in the third quarter of 2019.
During the three-month period ended December 31, 10.14-million tonnes of material were mined, compared with 8.32-million tonnes for the same period in 2019, representing an increase of 22%. This increase in material mined is a direct benefit of the company's mining equipment rebuild programme resulting in higher equipment utilization rate and additional equipment availability.
Bloom Lake produced 1.92-million wet metric tonnes of 66.4% high-grade iron-ore concentrate during the December quarter, an increase of 5% compared with the third quarter of 2019.