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London Mining's production curbed by heavy rain

Last updated: 07:51 22 Jan 2014 GMT, First published: 08:51 22 Jan 2014 GMT

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Iron ore miner London Mining (LON:LOND) hit its revised sales and production guidance in 2013 despite heavy rain in Sierra Leone contiuing to curb production in the fourth quarter.

Production of iron ore concentrate from the Marampa mine was 770,000 wet metric tonnes (wmt) in the three months to December, 19% lower than the previous three months as a prolonged wet season delayed commissioning of plant upgrades.

The effects of the wet season also caused full depletion of the run of mine (ROM) stockpile, which hit the blend of feed to the processing plant.

Sales hit a record 1.2mln tonnes in the fourth quarter, a rise of almost a third on the previous three months, but the price received fell to US$84/dmt (US%93/dmt in Q3 2013) due to a larger proportion of hedged volumes as well lower iron content.

For the full year, production rose 108% to 3.4mln wmt with sales 186% higher at 3.7mln wmt.

Graeme Hossie, chief executive said: "Despite the challenges to production and new plant installation experienced in Q4, as flagged in December, we doubled production and trebled sales volumes in 2013.

“We increased installed production capacity by 40% to 5.4Mwmt/a by the end of 2013 and are commissioning the plant upgrades which will deliver strong volume growth in 2014."

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