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Capstone Beats 2019 Cost Guidance, Commences PV3 Optimization Study
VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Capstone Mining Corp. (“Capstone” or the “Company”) (TSX:CS) announced its production and financial results for th
About this update from Capstone Copper Corp.
[{"type":"text","content":"VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Capstone Mining Corp. (“Capstone” or the “Company”) (TSX:CS) announced its production and financial results for the three months (“Q4 2019”) and year ended December 31, 2019. Copper production for 2019 totaled 153.4 million pounds of copper at consolidated C1 cash costs1 of $1.78 per pound. For full financial and operational results, refer to Capstone’s 2019 Management’s Discussion and Analysis and Consolidated Financial Statements (“MD&A and Financial Statements”). “We are pleased to announce that we finished 2019 above the mid-range on production guidance and below the bottom end of the guidance range on cash costs,” said Darren Pylot, President and CEO of Capstone. “Our two operations have near-term growth that combined will lead to a 20% boost to production and a 10% reduction in costs by 2021, but we are not stopping there. Today we are announcing a PV3 Optimization Study at Pinto Valley that will look at a number of low capital, quick payback projects aimed at debottlenecking various areas of the operation to enhance overall performance at Pinto Valley. The previously announced $15 million secondary crushers and ball mill shells replacement, scheduled in 2020, will be the first of many expected projects that collectively will debottleneck the operation. Overall, we believe there is room to push copper production significantly higher and costs lower at Pinto Valley.” Mike Wickersham, General Manager of Pinto Valley Mine, said, “During the month of November, we strategically advanced maintenance on key areas of the crushing plant to set up for an operational test in December, designed to push throughput levels beyond previously understood limits. From this, Pinto Valley achieved 18 days above 60,000 tonnes per day (“tpd”), an all-time average weekly throughput record of 63,517 tpd and an all-time daily tonnage record of 70,334 tpd. We have launched a PV3 Optimization Study to assess how we can sustainably achieve performance like this. The report will be shared in the second half of 2020.” Mr. Pylot continued, “2019 was a transformational year for Cozamin and it was due to exploration excellence, as we have announced some of the best drill results in its 13 year history for Capstone. Cozamin has always been the cornerstone cash flow asset for the Company and its current explo...