COPPER: Copper Mountain secondary crusher nearing summer start

BRITISH COLUMBIA – Copper Mountain Mining Corp. of Vancouver says the secondary crusher at its Copper Mountain mine is scheduled for start-up this summer. Construction is underway and on schedule.

The total cost of installing the secondary crusher is reported to be $40 million. Once installed, it will reduce all of the mill feed to the 50-mm range. The company notes that it has confirmed milling with finer feed will be key to operating consistently at the designed capacity of 35,000 t/d.

Copper Mountain took measures last year to increase mill throughput including a temporary increase in the powder factor and the addition of three portable crushers. Uptime in the mill also increased to 95% in Q4 from 86% in Q1 2013.

In 2013 the Copper Mountain mine near Princeton produced 66.2 million lb of copper, 21,600 oz of gold, and 320,400 oz of silver. The mill averaged 87.8% operating time for the year and a total of 10.1 million tonnes of ore was milled at an average grade of 0.35 % Cu.

Visit CuMtn.com to watch a video of the mining process.