Metro Mining Limited's expansion plans on track to meet 3.5 million wmt bauxite production during 2019

Metro Mining Limited plans to expand bauxite production its Bauxite Hills project in Far North Queensland by 17% to 3.5 million wet metric tonnes (wmt) during 2019, a news report from proactiveinvestors AUSTRALIA says.

In its half-yearly report for the period ending December 31, 2018, the company announced its plan to implement a series of low-cost operational improvements and upgrade initiatives to carry out the expansion.The company has already started working on implementing the changes required to achieve the expanded production forecast.  The expansion work is being done during the wet season shut down and hence will not affect the restarting of operations in April 2019.

The existing plant and infrastructure at Bauxite Hills has already been designed in such a way so that they can accommodate incremental increase in production without incurring much extra cost.  The initiatives are in the line of the long-term stage II expansion plan to 6 million wmt.

The company installed and commissioned a jaw crusher in late 2018 as part of the improvement and expansion initiative. During the reviewed six months of operations till December 2018, 27 vessels were loaded containing 1.6 million wmt of bauxite.

The company sold its entire produce in 2018 to the Chinese market and booked 75% of 2019 shipment to Chinese customers.