Hudbay’s Lalor project was last week fast approaching the ultimate milestone for a mine.
“We should be fully in full production by early August,” Alan Hair, Hudbay’s senior vice president and chief operating officer, told a media conference call.
The historic announcement came almost two years after Lalor, situated near Snow Lake, entered initial production.
It was also nearly a year and a half after Lalor entered the initial phase of commercial production on April 1, 2013.
Hudbay CEO David Garofalo said the revamped Snow Lake concentrator – upgraded to more than double its previous capacity – is largely complete.
Shaft done
Already completed is the new 6,000-tonne-per-day production shaft at Lalor.
As of June 30, Hudbay had spent 92 per cent of the $441 million mine construction budget at Lalor.
The outstanding funding is needed largely for the office / changehouse and surface exhaust fan installation, the company said.
Hudbay expects to wrap up remaining surface construction in late 2014.
An underground exploration drift at Lalor is scheduled to start before October with the goal of lengthening the expected life of the mine.
Hudbay proclaimed the Lalor discovery in March of 2007. The property is about 15 kilometres outside Snow Lake.
