A lot of mixed information.Some good some bad.
To recap
Plant functioning above nameplate..
- Production in October has been over achieving (By October 2017, 60 tonnes per hour Tank Leach throughput was being achieved with stable operation (20% higher than nameplate capacity). Meaning we can do 39,000 tpa
- Further actions are being taken with a goal to achieve 70tph throughput by 2018. Meaning we can do 45,500 tpa at that rate.
- Further improvements to operations with: Successful initial trial of ‘Fines Optimised Heap Leach’ is now evaluated with a view to installing a 30tph trial plant This could bring total production from the 50tpa (expected) to 100tpa, basically doubling our 32,500 tpa to 65,000.. Thats insane..
- AISC were higher due to the low grade ore we used 1.20% (record low). From memory it use to be around 2%. (almost double). But we did use slime, not sure what kind of costs that involves.
- It looks like the next quarter our output will be impacted severely as no more stockpiles are available.. it appears they are using whatever is left, until alternative sources become available, it seems the risk of production ceasing is still on the table..
Cobalt not being ruled out yet.. Cobalt During the quarter DRA Engineering (South Africa) completed a scoping study on options to recover cobalt from solution as a saleable product over the life of the Kipoi project. Cobalt production options as a by-product of copper production are now being considered within the Life of Mine studies currently being progressed.
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