Premier African Minerals Ltd (LON:PREM) has told investors that the X-Ray Transmission (XRT) ore sorter has arrived onsite at its RHA tungsten mine in Zimbabwe and is currently being assembled and integrated.
“The XRT sorter is an important part of the upgrades and improvements made to the plant and I am pleased to say that the installation is progressing well and that we are on track for first production this quarter,” said chief executive George Roach.
“In parallel to the plant upgrades, we have built up a significant stockpile of run of mine ore and are continuing to make excellent progress with the underground mine development as well as getting ready for the restart of the open pit mining operations early next month.”
In a note last week, Shore Capital analyst Yuen Low said: “Given testwork results, Premier believes that XRT sorter recoveries could be in the order of 95%+.
“On this basis alone, there is the potential for production to be increased to 10,000 tonnes per month, which [the company] is targeting to achieve in the third quarter of 2017 following process optimisation.
“This could see monthly cash generation jump to over US$0.5mln per month on an EBITDA [underlying] basis, we believe,” the analyst added.
Shares in Premier edged 0.6% higher to 0.68p.