Vancouver, British Columbia – May 22, 2013 – Copper Mountain Mining Corporation (TSX: CUM) (the “Company” or “Copper Mountain”) announces that further to the Company’s news release of May 17, 2013, the damaged SAG mill transformer was replaced late Friday and the mill was back in operation by 6 pm Friday May 17, 2013. Site maintenance personnel were able to successfully replace the damaged transformer with identical transformers from Ball Mill #1. Operations over the long weekend with the SAG mill and one ball mill was better than forecast and operated at an average rate of 1,100 tpoh or an average of 25,400tpd.
The exact cause of the failure is being evaluated by the supplier and an independent third party consultant. Preliminary testing has indicated that damage is limited to one set of coils in the transformer, which could help with shortening the timing of repairs. The damaged transformer was trucked to ABB’s transformer repair facility in Edmonton, Alberta. ABB has sent a technical specialist from its plant in Italy to oversee the dismantling of the damaged transformer, which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday May 21, 2013. ABB’s transformer facility in Italy have ordered the raw materials necessary to manufacture a replacement set of coils which will be flown to their facility in Edmonton for installation in the damaged transformer. The repair of the one set of coils is forecast to take 2.5 weeks. The Company has instructed ABB to manufacture a full set of coils for the transformer for an estimated cost of $125,000 to ensure additional coils are on site and available at all times.
Jim O’Rourke, President & CEO of Copper Mountain commented, “We are extremely pleased with our mine site teams’ ability to work quickly and effectively to get the SAG mill operational one full day ahead of our original estimate and at an increased throughput rate. This operation with one ball mill demonstrates the extra ball mill capacity available once we are able to get full tonnage through the SAG mill. ”
