Champion Iron (TSX: CIA) shares rose on Thursday after its Bloom Lake mine, in Quebec, reached its expanded nameplate capacity of 15 million tonnes a year in the last 30 days.
The company reported a quarterly production record of 3.5 million wet metric tonnes of high-grade 66.1% iron concentrate for the three months ended September, a 21% increase compared with the same quarter last year.
The record production was realized despite an unscheduled outage for several days related to a major crusher failure on one of the conveyor belts, affecting the availability of the Phase 2 concentrator.
The miner sold 2.9 million dry metric tonnes (dmt) of iron-ore concentrate in the quarter, up 12% from the previous quarter.
The company posted revenue of $387.6 million for the three-month period ended September 30, and net income of $65.3 million.
At a cut-off grade of 15% iron, the 2023 resource and reserve estimate for Bloom Lake totals 1.25 billion tonnes with an average iron content of 28.7% in the measured and indicated categories, and inferred resources of 246.3 million tonnes with an average iron content of 26.6%.
The reserves for Bloom Lake are estimated at 716 million proven and probable tonnes at an average grade of 28.6% iron.
The life-of-mine average iron metallurgical recovery is 82%, with a plant feed grade of 28.6% iron and an average yearly production of 15.2 million wet metric tonnes of high purity iron ore concentrate at 66.2% iron.
Champion shares were up 7.5% to $5.70 apiece in Toronto on Thursday afternoon, valuing the company at over $3 billion.
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