Central Asia Metals (LON:CAML) has repeated its production guidance of 12,000 tonnes of copper for full year 2015 from its Kounrad recovery plant in Kazakhstan, despite reduced output in the third quarter.
An operational incident in June, now rectified, affected output in the three months to end September 30, but the facility did achieve a new monthly record last month (September), the firm said.
The incident saw a temporary problem with the solvent extraction process, which saw a significant quantity of material to be processed lost to the dumps.
In the third quarter 2,966 tonnes of the red metal were produced compared to 3,337 tonnes in the same period of 2014. Total output to end September was 8,410 tonnes.
Total sales to end September were 7,699 tonnes compared to 7,055 tonnes in the same time in 2014.
CAML chief executive Nick Clarke noted when the firm floated in 2010, it raised $60 million and since had constructed the Kounrad plant on time and under budget, and produced over 36,600 tonnes of copper at an average C1 cost of $0.72 per pound.
"This low cash cost of production has enabled the company to pay back to shareholders via share buy-backs and dividends over $61 million, in addition to paying over $60 million in taxes to the Republic of Kazakhstan, an accomplishment we are most proud of in these challenging market conditions."
He added: "Production for Q3 is slightly behind where we planned but we are now over the June operational incident and the plant is back to its planned levels of output with record production achieved in September."