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New Smelter Hits 11 787 tonnes |
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NEW Nchanga Smelter produced 11,787 tonnes of copper anodes in the month of February, the highest output since the 300 000 tonnes per-annum capacity plant became operational in November 2008. |
Smelter Manager Enock Mponda said the production level had helped boost morale. “The result is good and encouraging to the team members who have been working hard to run the plant for not less than 22 hours daily,” he said.
Mr Mponda said as impressive as the February figure was, it was possible to produce more on a monthly basis provided all the materials needed to feed the plant were readily available.
Currently, the asking rate is 514 tonnes per day but 606 tonnes were produced in one day in February, proof of the potential of the team to achieve well above budget.
“The whole smelter team is aware it can achieve even more and is working tirelessly to ensure next month's result is even better than what we have produced in February,” he said.
Mr Mponda said the production level for the month of March is estimated at 13,250 tonnes which he said could be achieved when all the outside material from Lumwana and First Quantum was readily available.
“Despite us using all the available concentrate from our departments, we still need outside material to help us blend and achieve the expected goals,” Mr Mponda said
The February production is all the more remarkable given that plant had gone out of operation for several weeks following a fire incident in late December.
“It has been a challenging three months, with the team still studying the way the plant works and at the same time trying to produce the positive results expected by management ,” he said.
Mr Mponda said until the plant stabilised, the team would continue putting their best efforts together to look into each and every detail of the operation so that good results could continue to be achieved.
He said teamwork and enthusiasm among the smelter team had helped to produce the results in February but challenged the staff to do more minimise the cost of production even as they strove to achieve the expected goals for the coming months which he said were expected to be 50 percent higher than the current production levels.
Author: Martha Namanje Date Posted: 2009-05-12 |
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