OK, construction complete and handed over to operations, inclusive of performance testing... it's well and truly KMS baby now and showtime!
Little over 2 months of ore production and unsurprisingly running under 50% nameplate with commissioning issues, but "first full quarter production expected during the March 2024 quarter". Still ramping up so won;t hit nameplate until later in the year, but results will be instructive obviously.
The biggest concern so far is recovery of HM to HMC product... running at 35% recovery of HM in ore to final HMC Product (ie 34,349t con from 740.5kt ore @ 13.3% THM). That is a long way from ~56% recovery of HM to HMC Year 1 according to FID BFS in Year 1 (starting Q1 2024, assume 14.7% THM) and ~62% recovery for Year 2 & 3 (assuming 14.5% THM). A lot of HM must have been rejected to oversize, in addition to lower recoveries expected during ramp-up, which has always been one of the key risks for TB. lot of work to do on that front...
The first 4 years have a higher grade of THM, certainly of VHM, than the rest of the deposit, starting at 15% for the starter void (vs 13.3% so far) but averaging 13.7% THM over first ~9 years.
"Total ore mined for the quarter was 740,593 tonnes with an average heavy mineral (HM) ore mined grade of 13.3%. Total saleable concentrate production for the quarter was 34,349tonnes, including 26,910 tonnes of magnetic concentrate, 7,067 tonnes of non-magnetic concentrate and 472 tonnes of paramagnetic concentrate."
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