MMG plans to produce 2mn mt of copper at its flagship Las Bambas mine between 2022 and 2025, the company said in its Q1 earnings report.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the company to withdraw its 2020 guidance for the mine because of uncertainty over when operations will restart. The company added that it will update its guidance for Las Bambas—which produced 382,518mt of copper last year—once restrictions have been lifted and it can adequately ascertain what a new production timeline will look like.
However, the base metal producer, which specializes in copper and zinc, is maintaining the 68,000-75,000mt copper cathode guidance for its Kinsevere project, which produced 67,935mt of copper in 2019, as well as the 170,000mt zinc and 180,000mt zinc concentrate estimates at Dugald River, which produced 170,057mt of zinc last year. Similarly, MMG maintains its 2020 outlook of 55,000-65,000mt of zinc concentrate at Roseberry, which produced 83,463mt last year.
Copper concentrate production at Las Bambas reached 199,411mt in Q1 2020, down from 265,311mt during the same quarter in 2019. Output also declined against Q4 2019, when MMG produced 261,513mt of copper concentrate at Las Bambas.
At Kinsvere, MMG’s copper cathodes reached 18,207mt during Q1 2020, increasing from 12,539mt in the same quarter last year, but declining from 20,438mt in Q4 2019.
The company produced 72,846mt of zinc concentrate at Dugald River during the first quarter, however, that is below the 79,071mt in Q1 2019, and substantially lower than 100,014mt in Q4 2019. MMG produced 7,622mt of lead concentrate at Dugald River in Q1 2020, decreasing from 8,730mt during the same quarter last year, and declining from the 11,758mt in Q4 2019.
MMG produced 32,363mt of zinc concentrate at Rosebery in Q1 2020, decreasing slightly from the 34,132mt during the same period in 2019. Zinc concentrate production also decreased from 41,323mt in Q4 2019. Lead concentrate production at Rosebery in Q1 2020 totaled 9,155mt, marginally lower from 9,392mt in Q1 2019 and decreasing from 11,320mt produced in Q4 2019. Copper concentrate production at Rosebery declined slightly to 2,143mt during the first quarter from 2,223mt in Q1 2019, and from 2,339mt in Q4 2019.