Partial processing will resume at the Chapada copper/gold mine, in Brazil, within one week and a return to full capacity is expected to be achieved in 60 days, base metals miner Lundin Mining reported on Tuesday.
The Chapada mine suffered an interruption at the weekend, when four mill motors were damaged after a power outage.
Lundin said that the four mill motors had been removed and were being transported to repair facilities in Brazil. The extent of repair required, cost and expectation of timing would be confirmed early next week, the miner said, noting that repair costs were not expected to be material.
An on-site spare motor had been installed on the semiautogenous grinding (SAG) mill and the second spare motor will arrive at the mine early next week. The company will resume processing using these two motors on the SAG mill.
It is expected that the rate of production will be about 30% of normal production capacity operating the SAG mill circuit without the ball mill.
Chapada’s guidance for 2020 was to produce 51 000 t to 56 000 t of copper at $0.65/lb and 85 000 oz to 90 000 oz of gold. The company would provide a new guidance at a later stage.