Nord Ramping Up Production At Johnson Camp
"During the first quarter, we continued to make good progress in stepping up our mining and processing operations according to our reactivation plan for the Johnson Camp Mine," said John Perry, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Having commenced copper production from newly mined ore in February 2009, we have been focusing on ramping up our operations to achieve our targeted production rate of 25 million pounds per year by later this spring. Later this year, we plan to evaluate opportunities to increase production through small, incremental expansions and, based on the encouraging results of a scoping study completed in November 2008, to initiate a feasibility study that potentially could expand production at the Johnson Camp Mine by 60 percent to 40 million pounds per year."
In February 2009, Nord began producing copper cathodes from newly mined ore.
Nord sold 836,781 pounds of copper cathode in the 2009 first quarter, an 18.8% increase from the 704,299 pounds sold in the 2008 fourth quarter. The 2009 first-quarter sales represent a 74.1% increase from the 480,628 pounds of copper cathode that Nord produced in the 2008 period when production was based entirely on residual leaching of the existing ore heaps at the Johnson Camp Mine.
Nord successfully negotiated two transactions during the quarter that provided the company with some additional financial liquidity and flexibility.
In addition, in March 2009, Nord sold to IRC Nevada Inc. a 2.5 percent net smelter royalty on the mineral production sold from the existing mineral rights at the Johnson Camp Mine for net proceeds of $4,950,000.
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