Central Asia Metals on track after decent third quarter

Central Asia Metals reported encouraging operational outcomes from its third quarter operations at the Kounrad dump leach, solvent extraction, and electro-winning (SX-EW) copper recovery plant in Kazakhstan and the Sasa zinc-lead mine in North Macedonia on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded firm said Kounrad’s copper production for the quarter was 3,661 tonnes, cumulating a nine-month output of 10,377 tonnes, while copper sales totalled 3,903 tonnes.

Progress was noted in developing a 4.77MW solar farm during the quarter.

The physical installation had reached a substantial completion status, with the commissioning of the facility expected to kick off before the end of October.

Projections indicated that the solar farm would cater to around 10% of the daily power requirement during the impending winter.

At the Sasa mine, the third quarter saw 199,085 tonnes of ore mined and 199,427 tonnes processed, totalling 595,319 tonnes mined and 596,099 tonnes processed over nine months.

Average head grades hovered around 3.04% for zinc and 3.79% for lead during the quarter, while zinc concentrate and lead concentrate productions were 10,249 tonnes and 9,919 tonnes, respectively.

Notably, the period yielded payable productions of 4,307 tonnes of zinc and 6,687 tonnes of lead, contributing to total payable output for the nine months of 12,530 tonnes of zinc and 19,734 tonnes of lead.

During the quarter, Sasa also sold 95,044 ounces of payable silver to Osisko Gold Royalties.

Phase two of the Central Decline development, delving beneath the 910-metre level, was progressing and, as of 30 September, had reached 860 metres.

Despite awaiting a component for testing of cemented backfill, mining on the prepared 800-metre level had started.

At the same time, construction of the dry stack tailings plant and land clearance for the dry stack tailings landform had been initiated.

Looking ahead, Central Asia Metals said it was on a steady path to reach its full-year guidance for 2023, with copper production expected to fall between 13,000 and 14,000 tonnes, zinc in concentrate anticipated to be within the 19,000 to 21,000-tonne range and lead in concentrate projected to be between 27,000 and 29,000 tonnes.

“We are pleased to report another solid period of base metal production during the third quarter, and we remain on schedule to meet our full year guidance,” said chief executive officer Nigel Robinson.

“Importantly, this production has been delivered safely as we have reported zero lost time injuries at both operations.

“During the third quarter we reached the impressive milestone of having generated over $1bn in revenue from Kounrad in our 11 years of operations.”

Robinson described it as a “fantastic achievement” from the Kounrad team, especially given that the copper was all produced from waste material.

“As we look towards the end of the year, we will further progress our investments at Sasa, as well as complete construction and commissioning of our Kounrad Solar Power Plant, which should start generating electricity for us before the end of 2023.”

At 1120 BST, shares in Central Asia Metals were up 2.99% at 172.4p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.