Platinum miner North American Palladium (NAP) has announced a temporary shutdown of its primary crusher at the Lac des Iles mine.

The company has revealed that it has been forced to make the unscheduled shutdown following operating difficulties with the crusher.

However, the company has stressed that it has the relevant spare parts in its inventory and is confident that full production of 9,000 tonnes per day will resume by the end of the week. Until then, the mine will have an output of 7,500 tonnes per day.

The problems encountered with the crusher have resulted in intermittent stoppages throughout December, the company stated, but the downtime was used to perform maintenance work which had originally been planned for January.

Therefore, NAP is confident that the disruption caused by the primary crusher will have little impact on production and the miner has already contracted with Sigfusson Northern Limited to bring in portable crushers to ensure production can return to normal levels by the end of the week.

It is expected that the repairs to the primary crusher will take three weeks to conclude and NAP has stated that employees have already begun disassembly.


Ÿ Adfero Ltd