Singapore 28/07/2016 - MMG's copper metal in concentrate production surged 14-fold year-on-year to 90,329 tonnes in the second quarter following the start-up of its Las Bambas mine in Apurimac in Peru.
This took year-to-June output to 125,844 tonnes, up around 8.5-times on the same period of last year, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Thursday.
Production at Las Bambas was at 87,142 tonnes in April-June and 118,612 tonnes in the first half. Las Bambas achieved commercial production on July 1 and is expected to produce 250,000-300,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate this year.
MMG’s copper cathode production, however, fell 11 percent year-on-year to 37,835 tonnes in the second quarter due to a decline in output in Sepon in Laos, which was affected by a planned shutdown and lower grade ores. MMG's first-half copper cathode production slipped nine percent year-on-year to 75,893 tonnes.
Meanwhile, its zinc metal in concentrate production fell 82 percent year-on-year to 28,549 tonnes in the second quarter, taking year-to-June production to 74,594 tonnes. This is down 74 percent from the first half of last year.
The declines follow the closure of its Century mine in Australia late last year and a strategic reduction in throughput at Golden Grove in Western Australia. MMG said it had started a strategy to "preserve the value of the resource while exploration continues for high-grade ore" at Golden Grove in January this year.
MMG also said it expects first production at its Dugald River zinc-lead-silver mine in Queensland, Australia, in the first half of 2018 - estimated production is 170,000 tonnes per year of zinc.
MMG's full-year guidance for zinc company-wide production is unchanged at 120,000-135,000 tonnes.
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.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)