Eurasia Mining plc (LON:EUA) saw its shares jump in early trading Monday as its subsidiary and mine contractor agreed to progress with a second open pit at its West Kytlim mine in Russia while the project itself continued to exceed expectations.
The miner said its subsidiary, Kosvinsky Kamen, had agreed with the contractor, Techstroy, to progress with the Kluchiki open pit, located two kilometres south-west of the Malaya Sosnovka open pit at the project.
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Forestry clearing began at Kluchiki in July 2018, with machinery and equipment deployed to the site in August and full production following directly.
A 2014 feasibility study and reserves report identified 319kg of raw platinum at the site, with Russian standard C1 and C2 Reserves recalculated for the Kluchiki Area following a 2018 drilling program that will be reported on receipt of confirmation from the subsoil agency.
Meanwhile, the company reported that the West Kytlim project had total production of 141.5 kg with 4,549 ounces total raw platinum from 3 May to 19 September 2018 and a monthly production average of more than 30kg raw platinum.
Eurasia added that grades were continuing to exceed reserve grades by “a considerable margin”, with total average grades from production to date around one gram per cubic meter of raw platinum.
Christian Schaffalitzky, chairman of Eurasia, said the firm was “well ahead” of its internal target revenue for the year, with two months of production remaining for the season.
He added that the early work at the Kluchiki mine meant the firm was in “an excellent position” to ramp up to full-scale production in 2019.
Schaffalitzky also said the mining license application for the Monchetundra Project, located in Northern Russia, had reached the “very final stage” with the firm expecting a successful conclusion to the permit application process.
Shares were up 10.8% at 0.4p.