Zijin entered trial production stage at Cukaru Peki in Serbia

Zijin Mining announced that it has entered the trial production stage for its Cukaru Peki copper and gold mine located in Serbia.

The miner acquired the project in 2018 from Nevsun Resources for about $1.4 billion. Lundin Mining tried to acquire Nevsun in a hostile bid but was topped by the Chinese mining giant.

Zijin expects to produce 91 thousand tonnes of copper and 2.5 tonnes of gold per year. If Zijin could charge current metal prices and generate the forecast metal production, monthly revenues would come in at about $108.8 million based on $1,837 ounce spot gold and $9,900 tonne LME copper.

Mining has been acquisitive. In 2019 it paid $1 billion for Continental Gold. also acquired Guyana Goldfields last year for C$232 million.

“The Cukaru Peki Copper and GoldMine in Serbia is a super-large scale copper and gold mine wholly-owned by the Company. It is divided into the Upper Zone and the Lower Zone,” writes Zijin in a news release. “The reserve volumes of resources at the Upper Zone are 1.28 million tonnes of copper metal grading 3% in average, and 81 tonnes of gold metal grading 1.91 grammes/tonne in average. The first mining area will be the super-high grade ore deposit. The resource volumes at the Lower Zone are 14.30 million tonnes of copper metal grading 0.86% in average and 299 tonnes of gold metal grading 0.18 gramme/tonne in average.”

In September, Zijin is expecting it complete mine plans to be submitted to the Serbian authorities.

In April Zijin Mining announced about $408 million in smelter work in Serbia.

In March Zijin Mining reported that the company had a realized net profit in the range of RMB2.3 billion (~$353 million) to RMB2.5 billion (~$383 million) for the first quarter of 2021, representing an increase of between 121.15% to 140.38% compared with the same period of last year.

Source: kitco.com