The West Australian
Tuesday, 20 February 2018 12:43PM
Sandfire Resources’ Monty joint venture project will come on-stream later this year.
Sandfire Resources boss Karl Simich says the miner is set to reap the benefits of a firmer copper price as its new high-grade Monty satellite mine comes online.
Mr Simich was speaking after the miner posted a 66 per cent surge in first-half profit to $59.5 million on the back of record sales revenue of $296.2 million for the period.
The result was achieved on copper sales of 30,222 tonnes of copper and 18,504 ounces of gold.
The strong performance was attributed to the rising US dollar copper price and declining operating costs over the period.
Sandfire will pay an interim dividend of 8¢-a-share fully franked, up from 5¢ in the previous corresponding period.
The company said it held $164.4 million in cash at the end of December and no debt, up from $126.7 million at the end of June.
Mr Simich said Sandfire was well placed to continue to deliver robust cash returns in the coming years as the outlook for the copper market remained strong and the company continued solid production from its flagship DeGrussa mine and Monty joint venture project came on-stream later this year.
“The exceptional grade of the Monty deposit will have a material impact on our average throughput grades as we begin to blend ore from this new operation from early next financial year,” he said“This will help to drive a rising copper production profile over the next three years – at what is shaping up to be the perfect time in the copper price cycle.”
Mr Simich said mined copper grades continued to decline globally and supply remained vulnerable to disruptions.
“This is an exciting time to be bringing a new high-grade mine on stream at Monty,” he said.
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