Jan 6, 2016 – Canada’s Imperial Metals Corp on Wednesday suspended pit operations at its Huckleberry copper mine in British Columbia, becoming the latest in the industry to curtail production after a 50 percent slump in the metal’s price in the past five years.
Imperial said it would lay off 100 of its 260 workers at Huckleberry, retaining the rest to mill stockpiled ore. Milling the stockpile is just a temporary measure expected to last around three months, Imperial spokesman Steve Robertson said.
He declined to speculate what would happen at the end of three months but did say the mine needed a “substantial” increase in the copper price and an additional drop in the value of the Canadian dollar before it could re-start pit mining.
A weaker dollar reduces costs and increases margins for miners, whose output is sold in U.S. dollars.
Vancouver-based Imperial has a 50 percent stake in the Huckleberry mine, with Mitsubishi Materials Corp, Dowa Mining Co Ltd, Furukawa Co Ltd and others owning the rest.
Robertson also declined to give a forecast for production from the stockpile. Imperial had forecast the Huckleberry mine would produce 44 million pounds of copper in 2015.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.reuters.com/article/imperial-metals-mine-idUSL3N14Q53V20160106