LONDON (Alliance News) - Rambler Metals and Mining PLC Tuesday said it met most of its full year targets since implementing a revised mine plan in January but narrowly missed its guidance in some areas.
Rambler, which began producing from the copper, gold and silver Ming mine in Canada in November 2014, introduced a revised mine plan and revised production guidance in January for the full year ended July 31 to respond to falling commodity prices and rising costs.
"It has certainly been a challenging year with a declining copper price; but the quick actions taken by Rambler to streamline costs and efficiencies throughout the business has had a beneficial impact," said Norman Williams, president and chief executive of Rambler.
"With the revised mine plan implemented in January 2015, the group has been targeting the lower end of the communicated production guidance. For the fiscal year end the operation met most of its planned targets of tonnes milled, recoveries and head grades, however, did fall short on the total planned copper and gold metal production guidance," said the company Tuesday.
The company produced 4,733 tonnes of copper concentrate in the year, missing its guidance range of 5,400 to 6,700 tonnes whilst gold concentrate production totalled 5,335 ounces compared to its guidance of 5,600 to 6,600 ounces.
Silver concentrate production was within the guidance range of 39,000 to 46,000 ounces, totalling 39,706 ounces during the financial year.
All of its other production targets were achieved, including throughput, recovery levels, head grades and concentrate grades.
"Despite marginally missing the planned metal production for the fiscal year, we did meet or exceed all other remaining guidance targets," said Williams.
Looking forward to the current financial year due to end July 31, 2016, the miner has released similar production guidance levels for the full year. Rambler is aiming to produce between 4,500 to 6,000 tonnes of copper concentrate, 5,500 to 6,500 ounces of gold concentrate and 42,000 to 57,000 ounces of silver concentrate.
The guidance for the current financial year incorporates the Lower Footwall Zone, which is a deposit that Rambler integrated into the Ming mine back in July.
Rambler shares were up 0.7% to 8.18 pence per share on Tuesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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