Thompson Creek Metals Reports Constrained Q3 Output

Thompson Creek Metals Company Inc. (TSX:TCM,NYSE:TC) announced its production and sales results for Q3 2015, as well as for the first nine months of 2015.
For Q3, the company’s Mount Milligan mine produced 31,700 dry tonnes, including 16.3 million pounds of payable copper and 53,800 ounces of payable gold. Respectively, that’s an increase of 1 percent and a decline of 11 percent from the previous quarter.
The press release also states:

For the third quarter of 2015, daily mill throughput averaged 44,077 tonnes and mill availability averaged 90.2%. Recoveries averaged 76.1% for copper and 67.3% for gold. A significant amount of oxidized material was processed during the third quarter which, as expected, adversely impacted recoveries.
Throughput was constrained during the third quarter as a result of SAG screen deck failures due to overloading and associated recirculation issues, together with reduced mill availability caused by scheduled and unscheduled mill shutdowns. In addition to the unscheduled shutdowns to remediate the screen deck failures and other mechanical repairs, mill availability was impacted by scheduled shutdowns to complete maintenance on the primary crusher, reline the ball mills, and perform the annual inspection of the SAG mill motor

Jacques Perron, president and CEO of Thompson Creek, commented:

During the third quarter, our ability to improve throughput continued to be limited by the SAG screen deck. As we attempted to push throughput, we had unexpected issues with the single SAG screen deck, which caused recirculation issues and required us to shut down the mill on several occasions. These issues have been remedied, and as previously disclosed, we plan to install a second SAG discharge screen deck in October, which we believe, will allow us to increase throughput without significant issues. We believe that with these improvements, together with the continuation of secondary crushing of material from our temporary crushing facility, throughput will improve in November and December and it is still our objective to achieve design mill throughput by yearend.

Click here to read the full Thompson Creek Metals Company Inc. (TSX:TCM,NYSE:TC) press release.