Imperial Reports 2015 Production

 

VANCOUVER, BC - Imperial Metals Corporation reported that its 2015 base and precious metals production from the Red Chris, Mount Polley, Huckleberry and Sterling mines was 88.1 million pounds copper, 44.7 thousand ounces gold and 224.5 thousand ounces silver. Production in 2015 included Red Chris production which began mill operations on February 17. Mount Polley mine restarted modified mill operations in August.

Copper production for the 2015 fourth quarter was 20.38 million pounds copper and 10,025 ounces gold. The mill achieved an average throughput of 27,174 tonnes per day.

Mining activities continued in the Main and East zones, with the bulk of the mill feed (approximately 77%) from the Main zone blended with higher grade East zone ores (approximately 23%). The ore grade averaged 0.502% copper and 0.298 g/t gold. During the fourth quarter the mining rate averaged 77,261 tonnes per day, up from the average of 68,931 tonnes per day achieved in the third quarter. Two Caterpillar 793 haul trucks and an excavator transferred from Mount Polley to Red Chris were operational prior to year end, resulting in a mining rate of 84,448 tonnes per day in December.

Milling activities were impacted during the fourth quarter of 2015 as a result of premature wear issues experienced on the SAG mill discharge trunnion liners, a 40 hour power outage by BC Hydro to conduct maintenance on the Skeena to Bob Quinn 287kV transmission line, and water clarity issues which developed during the final week in December, likely due to a buildup of ice in the tailings pond. To deal with the premature wear issues a new set of redesigned discharge trunnion liners have been installed and are working well. The BC Hydro outage was caused by the need to adjust the spacing between the conductors and the fibre optic cable on one of the long spans that had been causing power outages on the line. This adjustment should improve power reliability over the long term. The water clarity conditions extended into January and are being resolved by increased pumping of well water, and by adjusting the location of discharged tailings.

The 2016 production target for Red Chris is 90.0 to 100.0 million pounds copper and 60,000 to 70,000 ounces gold.