Andrada Mining Ltd on Friday maintained its guidance on costs and said production increased despite ‘plant outages during the [first] quarter’.
Shares in Andrada fell 15% to 3.91 pence on Friday afternoon in London.
The technology metals mining company, which is focused on exploration licences in Namibia, said that in the three months to May 31 the amount of ore processed rose 10% to 237,976 tonnes from 217,189 tonnes the prior year.
Tin concentrate production rose 1.4% to 364 tonnes from 359 tonnes, while contained tin production rose 3.2% to 223 tonnes from 216 tonnes.
Meanwhile, the realised price of tin increased 23% to $30,839 per contained tonne from $25,149.
‘Coinciding favourably with our expansion of both tin concentrate and contained tin production, we are ideally positioned to capitalise on the tin price rally that began in April 2024,’ commented Chief Executive Officer Anthony Viljoen.
That said, compared with the fourth quarter of financial 2024, tin concentrate fell 1.9% from 371 tonnes while contained tin fell 3.5% from 231 tonnes. This was due to plant outages caused by ‘a malfunction in the ore preparation section, which was expediently repaired’.
Nonetheless, Viljoen reassured observers: ‘Despite the plant outages during the quarter, I am pleased to confirm that all the issues were resolved and will not repeat in the future.’
The plant outages also caused a ‘double-digit increase’ in C1 costs - operating cash cost per unit of production, excluding selling expenses and sustaining capital expenditure associated with the Uis mine - which jumped 20% on-year and 16% on-quarter to $18,899 per tonne of contained tin.
C2 costs, or C1 plus selling expenses including logistics, smelting and royalties, rose 29% annually and 25% from the fourth quarter to $23,452 per tonne.
However, Andrada said costs remained within management guidance for the period.
Viljoen added: ‘We successfully produced and delivered our first five-tonne consignment of tantalum to AfriMet during the quarter...This is an important milestone for the company, that places us firmly on the path to becoming a multi-mineral producer of critical metals. We look forward to a continuation of this supply agreement.’
Looking ahead, he commented: ‘Given the diversity of the minerals within our mining licences, we have broadened the scope of our strategic process beyond just the Uis mining licence.
‘The expansion of the scope has the potential to unlock multiple partnership opportunities across our portfolio of assets...We remain highly optimistic for the remainder of the year based on the value that will be unlocked across the portfolio.’
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