South American miner Lara Exploration announced that it has started the initial mining and production of copper concentrate at Celesta, a mine in the Carajas, Para area of Brazil.
According to the company’s statement on July 27, the first concentrate will be shipped in early August. Lara has a 5pc equity interest and 2pc smelter royalty in production at the mine, which is jointly operated by Celesta Mineração and North Extração de Minério.
The companies will initially focus on operations in the Osmar pit of the mine, which has an indicated reserve estimate of 2.14mn mt with 4.2pc contained copper and 0.66parts/mn mt of contained gold.
The project is financed by Ocean Partners, based in the UK.