Amerigo Resources Ltd. reported that its Minera Valle Central (MVC) complex, located near Rancagua, Chile has resumed normal operations. The MVC plant was reconnected to Chile’s central power grid on July 21, 2023, enabling MVC to resume normal operations processing fresh and historic Cauquenes tailings the following day.
“We are pleased to resume normal operations at MVC. I am very proud of the swift response from all members of our team in Chile, which allowed us to reconnect to the power grid as quickly as possible and minimize lost production,” said Aurora Davidson, president and CEO for Amerigo. “We took this opportunity to make changes to our infrastructure in a way that should provide additional protection to our operations from another event of this type. The disruption from this climatic event will impact our second and third-quarter results but have no lasting effect on Amerigo’s long-term business.”
Amerigo had reduced its annual production guidance by 3% to 60.5 million lb of copper due to the lost production from the flooding. This revised copper production guidance remains in place, and Amerigo’s original guidance of 1 million lb of molybdenum remains unchanged.
MVC lost its connection to the central power grid on June 23, 2023, when three high-voltage towers owned by MVC collapsed following severe flooding from heavy rains in central Chile. This situation caused a total power outage at the MVC operation. Emergency power supplies took immediate effect to prevent any negative environmental impact from occurring.
Amerigo produces copper concentrate, and molybdenum concentrate as a by-product at the MVC operation in Chile by processing fresh and historic tailings from Codelco’s El Teniente mine, the world’s largest underground copper mine.
