Atalaya Mining breathes new life into old Rio Tinto asset

Atalaya Mining’s (TSX: AYM; LSE: ATYM) Proyecto Riotinto in the Andalucia region of Spain is on the verge of producing 90 million lb (42,000 tonnes) of copper next year – or about 200,000 tonnes of copper concentrate – for some of the world’s biggest off-takers, but the company is relatively unknown in North America. The European junior – formerly known as EMED Mining – put the open pit mine and mill, 65 km northwest of Seville, back into production in February 2016. (Previous owners put the mine on care and maintenance in 2001, when copper prices were languishing at around US$1.00 per lb.) Atalaya Mining has been busy ramping up the processing rate to 9.5 million tonnes per year, and expects to reach that capacity before the start of 2017. Currently the mill is operating at a throughput rate of 95% and the mine is running at 100%. “It has been quite a success,” Alberto Lavandeira, the company’s president and CEO, says in a telephone interview from Spain. “We completed the whole ramp-up in less than two years when the previous management team thought it would be done in three years, and we did it at half the capital cost, or about US$150 million, down from previous estimates of US$300 million.” Read the entire story at The Northern Miner.