Capstone sees four-week downtime at Mantoverde after ball mill motor fail
Vancouver-based Capstone Copper said on Sunday that copper production at its Mantoverde mine in Chile would be temporarily reduced after a second ball mill motor failure forced the site to operate at half capacity.
The miner said repairs should to take about four weeks, with output cut by 3 000 t to 4 000 t of copper in concentrate over the period.
The company has no additional spare motor on site.
Mantoverde, which has two ball mills, initially resumed operations last week after replacing a failed motor with a spare. A second motor breakdown on August 30 has now left the operation constrained, though the site is able to run at reduced capacity by bypassing the mill — a configuration the company has used previously.
Capstone said it would mitigate the disruption by bringing forward planned maintenance scheduled for later in September. The company stated that it was investigating the cause of the failures while preparing a replacement and repair strategy to restore full capacity.
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