ATLAS Consolidate Mining and Development Corp. on Friday reported the successful completion of two shipments of copper concentrates in September by its wholly owned subsidiary Carmen Copper Corp.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Atlas said the two shipments totaled 9, 875 dry metric tons.

The shipments—which were consigned to Chinese and Korean smelters—were valued at $23.07 million based on the provisional prices of $3.80 per pound of copper and $1,759 per ounce of gold.

The shipped concentrates averaged 27.57 percent copper, 2.21 grams per ton gold, and 22.27 grams per ton silver.

“The payable metal content of the concentrate was 5,779,000 pounds copper and 631 ounces of gold,” the company said.

The total mill throughput for September amounted to 1,166,000 tons of ore at an average grade of 0.31 percent of copper—resulting in the production of 10,624 DMT of copper concentrate with an average grade of 27.75 of copper, 2.17 grams per ton of gold, and 21.12 grams per ton of silver.

Atlas also said that its Berong Nickel Project has resumed operations, permiting the completion of two shipments last July. Atlas owns a 25.2-percent stake in the project.

CCC announced earlier that it plans to more than double its copper ore extraction from the Toledo copper mine in Cebu.

The company will spend roughly $150 million over the next two years for the refurbishment and upgrade of its processing plants to raise production from the current 40,000 metric tons to about 100,000 by 2016.

To date, the Toledo mine is processing about 140,000 MT of materials a day, with at least 100,000 MT comprising waste materials and only 40,000 MT copper ore.

With the new ball mill in place, CCC can increase milling capacity to about 250,000 MT of materials containing roughly 40,000 MT of copper ore.

By the third quarter of 2011, copper ore extraction will increase to about 60,000 MT and by 2016 raise this to 100,000.

In August, Atlas completed the acquisition of the remaining 45.54-percent uncontrolled stake in CCC held by Singapore ’s Crescent Asia Special Opportunities Portfolio through its units, Casop Atlas B.V. and Casop Atlas Corp.

CCC owns exclusive rights over mineral reserves in the 1,674-hectare Toledo copper mine complex, which is estimated to contain 1.5 billion tons of ore, or about 5 million tons of copper.

Atlas shares rose to P16 each on Friday from P15.36 on Thursday.