Excelsior Mining Corp will begin copper cathode production at its Gunnison in-situ recovery copper mine in Arizona within 30 days, the company said in a statement. It is expecting 25mn lbs of copper per year initially.
It had begun initial mining at the site in January this year but the operations were suspended in March due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the staff tested positive for it.
The company said that after only three-months of acid injection, it has collected enough copper to start initial production.
It is also aiming to ramp-up to full nameplate capacity by 2021 after the optimization program solved the issue of copper and other precipitates blocking wells.
The extraction project is permitted to produce up to 125Mlb of copper cathode a year, while the mine is expected to produce 2,200mn lbs of copper cathode over 24 years.