Metro Mining to increase production to 3.5M (WMT) at Bauxite Hills Mine

Metro Mining Ltd will increase bauxite production from Bauxite Hills Mine to 3.5 million wet metric tonnes to meet customer demand. The company plans a series of initiatives and will be predominately implemented in Q1 of 2019 during the planned wet season shutdown at Bauxite Hills and long lead items already ordered.

Image Source:www.metromining.com.au

Metro’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Simon Finnis said: “Metro has seen an increase in demand for our bauxite from a range of customers in China. The operation has now produced over 1.6M WMT of bauxite and we have identified low cost and short lead time initiatives to increase production next year. The pay back on the capital would be well within the 2019 calendar year, an excellent return.

We have an outstanding platform to incrementally add to sales in 2019, increase operational cashflow, and assess in detail the Stage 2 expansion opportunity”.

Much of the plant and infrastructure at Bauxite Hills has been designed to accommodate higher operating levels so the initiatives to incrementally increase production are easy to implement and low cost.

Many of these initiatives were part of the long-term Stage 2 expansion to steady state production of 6.0M WMT pa (subject to DFS update and Board approval) and as such will be brought forward.

These include:

• Supplementing the current truck and haulage fleet configuration.

 • Duplicating screening capacity at the Barge Loading Facility.

• Accelerating installation of a jaw crusher to enable shipment of any oversized material.

• Supplementing the marine fleet and on-water infrastructure to maximise efficiency of tug and barge movements

Capital costs are expected to be approximately A$6.8M funded from a combination of Metro’s cash reserves and existing financing arrangements.

The DFS for the Stage 2 expansion is planned to be completed in Q2 2019.