HBM Constancia commercial production The ramp-up has met management's expectations with regard to throughput, recovery and product quality. The plant is performing as designed and throughput has occasionally exceeded design capacity due to favourable ore characteristics, with peaks of over 90,000 tonnes per day. Copper recovery in April averaged just over 65 per cent, which is in line with ramp-up design and expectations. Concentrate grade has averaged 27 per cent copper year to date, with average concentrations of deleterious elements below penalty levels. As at April 30, 2015, 42,575 tonnes of copper concentrate had been produced, of which approximately 20,500 tonnes had been shipped.
The focus in the initial stages of ramp-up was on ore throughput with an aim to meet saleable concentrate specifications. The focus is currently on increasing copper recovery while maintaining throughput and concentrate quality. A key component of improving copper recovery is expected to be the recently started concentrate regrind circuit. HudBay continues to expect the operation to achieve steady-state design and feasibility level recoveries of copper in the fourth quarter of 2015. In addition, assuming that the copper ramp-up continues as planned, the company intends, in the second quarter of 2015, to begin to ramp up the molybdenum concentrate separation circuit, which has achieved mechanical completion.