Thompson Creek Metals Co. announced the new Endako mill is complete and commercial production began on February 1, 2012. For the first five days of February, the mill at the company’s 75%-owned Endako mine in northern British Columbia was running at or above its design capacity of 55,000 tons per day (tpd), a 77% increase over the old mill’s capacity of 31,000 tpd. The construction of the regrind circuit for the new mill is still in process and is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2012. In the interim, the company is using the cleaner and regrind circuit in the old mill.
“We are extremely pleased to have achieved the full design tonnage for the new mill just 20 days into the commissioning and start-up process,” said Kevin Loughrey, chairman and CEO, Thompson Creek. “Our employees, contractors and suppliers have performed an outstanding job meeting the many challenges necessary to reach operational and commercial production so quickly. We continue to make significant progress and ramp up production, and we anticipate full production will be achieved in the second quarter of 2012.
The Endako mine is expected to produce approximately 10-11 million lb of molybdenum at $8.25-$9.25/lb.
