Friday, July 16, 2004 MINARA Resources has again disappointed the market, delivering a poor June quarter performance and flagging another difficult year at the Murrin Murrin nickel operation in 2004-05 – despite spending $100 million rectifying the plant.
Murrin Murrin, which is 60% owned by Minara and 40% by Glencore, produced less than 6000t of nickel in the June period, and is forecast to yield 33-35,000t next year – well short of its 40,000t capacity.
Production in 2003-04 came in at 28,578t of nickel and 2054t of cobalt.
Minara said two scheduled shutdowns in 2004-05 – resulting in the plant being idle for a total of 31 days – would be the major contributors to the reduced output.
One of those shutdowns will involve completion of maintenance on the hydrogen sulphide plant, where unexpected problems flared up last quarter.
Aside from the two shutdowns, Minara expects to be operating at capacity during 2004-05, and says costs at full production will be in the range of $2-2.50/lb.
Shares in Minara were off 18c to $2.40 in early afternoon trade.
MRE Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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