|
Ivanhoe Mines Announces Financial Results and Review of Operations for the Second Quarter of 2011 |
|
|
|
|
Monday, 15 August 2011 05:41 |
|
Ivanhoe Mines announced its results for the quarter ended June 30, 2011.
Highlights During the Quarter and Subsequent Weeks Overall construction at Oyu Tolgoi continues to advance on schedule and on budget, and reached a 30.8% level of completion at the end of Q2. Key elements of the project, including the concentrator complex, primary crusher and tailings-thickening ponds, remain ahead of schedule. Commercial production is expected to commence in the first half of 2013. Pre-stripping for the phase-one, open-pit mine on the gold-rich Southern Oyu deposits at Oyu Tolgoi began in August 2011. A ground-breaking ceremony for the open pit was held to officially mark the commencement of pre-stripping operations. The development of the first lift of the phase-two, underground block-cave mine at the Hugo North Deposit continued successfully during Q2’11. Lateral mine development 1,300 metres below surface at Hugo North is on schedule, achieving an advance during Q2’11 of 1,190 metres, for a total of 7,939 metres completed since tunneling started in 2008. Official approvals were received in early May 2011 that enabled the Oyu Tolgoi Project to begin construction of a 95-kilometre, high-voltage power transmission line to deliver electricity expected to be imported from China to supply the initial mining operation. The erection of towers for the 220-kilovolt transmission line in Mongolia is expected to be completed later this year and the line stringing is planned for spring 2012 to coincide with anticipated stringing on the Chinese side of the border. Contract negotiations for the supply and sale of copper-gold-silver concentrate to be produced at Oyu Tolgoi are expected to be finalized in Q4’11. Most of the concentrate initially is expected to be delivered to smelters in China. Oyu Tolgoi’s site-based construction workforce totalled approximately 14,200 at the end of July 2011, with approximately 11,200 working on site each day and the balance on leave. Approximately 7,320 Mongolians were employed at the Oyu Tolgoi site, with an additional 3,500 Mongolians participating in offsite training. On July 12, Ivanhoe Mines and BHP Billiton Ltd. began a new exploration drilling program on their copper-molybdenum-gold discovery at the Ulaan Khud North joint-venture licence, approximately 10 kilometres north of Oyu Tolgoi. The first drill hole, UKD056, is planned to test its target to a depth of 1,100 metres. During Q2’11, Ivanhoe Mines’ 57%-owned subsidiary, SouthGobi Resources, reported coal sales of $47.3 million from its Ovoot Tolgoi mine in southern Mongolia, representing approximately 1.05 million tonnes of coal sold to customers in China at an average realized price of approximately $54 per tonne. Ivanhoe Mines’ 62%-owned subsidiary, Ivanhoe Australia, continued to focus on the development of its Merlin high-grade molybdenum and rhenium project in the Cloncurry region of Queensland. Construction of the decline to access the Merlin and Little Wizard deposits had progressed to 1,097 metres by the end of Q2’11. Altynalmas Gold, 50%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines, is continuing its drilling program designed to further delineate resources and reserves to NI 43-101 standards at the Kyzyl Gold Project in Kazakhstan.
More information, click here. |