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Tungsten miner Premier African Minerals (LON:PREM) has now achieved steady state production at its RHA mine in Zimbabwe, it said today.
George Roach, chief executive, said throughput was 25% higher than initial design expectations, with 20 tonnes per hour being processed.
Work is underway to improve the efficiency of the recovery circuits he added, while the group intends to fast track the extraction of 100,000 tonnes of ore identified underground in the mine’s historic workings.
Most of the ore being processed currently is coming from open pit mining.
A second shipment has been dispatched with revenues expected from mid-September.
"The enhanced plant throughput, anticipated resource upgrades from underground and a decision to expedite underground development are all likely to offset the effects of the early production delays in the medium term,” Roach said.
Premier African has also re-negotiated the conversion terms of loan notes held by financier Darwin to reflect the recent drop in the price of tungsten.
The trigger price for conversion was based on a tungsten price of US$230 per mtu, but this has now been changed to US$130 per mtu. Darwin has been granted £50,000 worth of new warrants in exchange.
George Roach has also increased the size of a put option agreement with Darwin to US$2.4mln from US$2mln.