Wednesday 10 July, 2013

Operational Update

Adam Moroney, an independent consultant, was recently hired by Frontier to advise management on the optimisation of SX-EW operations at Benkala.

Mr Moroney, a degree-qualified consultant with 20 years of SX/EW management and heap leach research experience, has four heap leach and agglomeration patents to his name.

Following more than four weeks analysis of stacking operations at Benkala, Mr Moroney has recommended the incremental increase of current leach pad stacking to a height of 3.5 metres. Accordingly, the leach pad stacking height of Pad 3 is currently being increased from 2.5 metres to 3.5 metres.

Operational staff at Benkala have started pouring sulphuric acid at Pad 3 and will be monitoring the percolation process to potentially increase copper extraction without significantly effecting overall production costs.

In addition, the Company has secured contracts for sulphuric acid delivery at less than 75% of the pricing levels contracted in the previous 12 months, further reducing overall production costs at Benkala.



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