Apex Mining Co. Inc. expects rise in its ore production within the year as efforts to increase throughput “advance toward completion.”
The project, dubbed Apex 3000, is meant to ramp up processing capacity by almost four times, from 850 tons daily to 3,000 tons.
Apex intends to gradually increase gold ore production over the next two years to lower production cost per ounce.
“Plant construction, which started in June 2012, has reached 36 percent physical completion, while civil works and structures are ready for equipment installation,” Apex chair Benoit de Galbert said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.
De Galbert added that half of the future mining fleet was now operational and underground mine development was under way to open new production zones.
The company’s main resource is the Maco gold and silver mine in Compostela Valley.
Company president Baiverth Diabo said expansion achievements in the first quarter was funded with cash generated from operations.
“Although we posted a net loss of P29.2 million in the first quarter of 2013, we managed to pay expansion expenditures amounting to P722 million. We were able to generate cash of P720 million from our operations during the first three months of the year,” Diabo said.
Apex earlier blamed the appreciation of the peso and the decrease in the price of gold as the main contributors to the first-quarter net loss.