Frontier Mining jumps on progress at Bekala Copper Project

Shares in AIM-listed independent copper producer Frontier Mining rose sharply on Tuesday morning after the company announced that shipment of copper cathodes had started during the first week of June.Since commissioning in August 2012, the company reported that the Benkala SX-EW plant in Kazakhstan had produced more than 1,000 tonnes of London Metal Exchange (LME) Grade A copper-cathode and shipped and sold approximately 953 tonnes to date.The company said that it had also commenced construction of an additional four leach pads which would bring the total number of leach pads up to six.Implementation of optimisation studies on the agglomeration, stacking and leach kinetics were being implemented and the company said that this would result in an increased rate of extraction. Elsewhere, at the company's Baitemir project, it reported that further technological studies and exploration drilling had been undertaken, incorporating trenching and geophysics, so that the company could gain further understanding of the resource. Frontier Mining's share price was unchanged at 2.40p at 08:48 on Tuesday following a sharp early morning spike to 2.55p .MF