(Corrects headline to second half from second quarter)
London 21/04/2016 - Peru's Las Bambas mine is on track to achieve commercial production in the second half of 2016, MMG Ltd said in a release today.
During the first quarter of this year the mine produced 31,470 tonnes of copper in copper concentrate.
The site is now focused on a successful transition from the construction to the operational phase.
“We have now transferred the concentrator plant from the construction to the operations team and are focusing on the commissioning of the molybdenum plant,” Chief Executive Officer Andrew Michelmore said.
MMG has maintainwed its 2016 guidance at Las Bambas - it expects to produce 250,000-300,000 tonnes of copper in copper concentrate.
Once in full production Las Bambas will have nameplate capacity throughput of 51.1 million tonnes per year and will rank as one of the top copper producing mines in the world.
The Las Bambas mine is owned by a consortium of MMG (62.5 percent), Guoxin International Investment Co (22.5 percent) and CITIC Metal Co (15 percent), which purchased the mine from Glencore in 2014.