Atlas’ Toledo copper mine operational next month

MANILA, Philippines - The upgraded processing plant of Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp.’s Toledo copper mine in Cebu is expected to be fully operational next month.

The plant upgrade increases its milling capacity to 60,000 tons per day from the previous 40,000 tons per day.

The Toledo mining complex in Cebu is operated by the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary Carmen Copper Corp.

This would enable Carmen Copper  to increase its output to 10 million pounds of copper concentrate per month from the current production capacity of around seven to 7.5 million pounds per month.

Atlas, in a statement, said the initial commissioning of the upgraded plant in Jan. showed positive results.

Last Jan. 31, half of the newly-installed process circuit was operated continously for 2.5 days, during which “satisfactory” copper recovery and grind size accuracy was observed.

Atlas said the commissioning work on the remaning half of the process circuit would start soon.

“Once this work is completed, the test run of the whole process circuit will be initiated,” said the company.

Atlas invested around $105 million to upgrade the Toledo mine’s milling facility.