Concentrate production for the second quarter at Turquoise Hill Resources’ Oyu Tolgoi Copper-Gold Project in southern Mongolia returned to normal rates after recovering from thickener rake repairs in the previous quarter.

Metal production, however, was impacted by lower-grade ore due to delayed open pit mine advancement. Small amounts of higher-grade ore were processed in quarter two. The grade will increase through the second half of 2014 as the mine deepens into a high-grade zone.

Turquoise Hill continues to expect Oyu Tolgoi to produce between 135,000 and 160,000 tonnes of copper and 600,000 to 700,000 ounces of gold in concentrates for 2014.

Concentrate sales during the second quarter increased significantly due to ongoing improvements in customer logistics and marketing. As a result of the increase, sales exceeded production resulting in an inventory drawdown for the quarter.

There was 16.861 million tonnes mined from the open pit in the quarter, compared to 21.621 million tonnes in the previous quarter. There were 7.778 million tonnes of ore treated compared to 5.56 million in the previous quarter. The copper grade was 0.53% compared to 0.52%, the gold grade was 0.60 grams/tonne, up from 0.49 grams/tonne and the silver grade was 1.57 grams/tonne, up from 1.52 grams/tonne.

Copper concentrate increased from 1.029 million tonnes to 1.4 million tonnes and the average concentrate grade was 25.8% copper, up from 24.6%.

Turquoise Hill’s chief executive officer Kay Priestly says, “Production at Oyu Tolgoi progressed during the second quarter and concentrate sales continued to pick up as the end-to-end logistics improvements took hold. Second quarter sales exceeded production resulting in an inventory reduction.”

Source: www.turquoisehill.com