Beacon Hill Resources amps up activities at Minas Moatize mine

Mining company Beacon Hill Resources unveiled on Tuesday expansion plans at its Minas Moatize coking coal project in Mozambique.

A revised strategy is expected to deliver an estimated $80m in capital expenditure and a run rate of 2.8m tons per annum run-of-mine by the end of the year.

Over the past quarter the group focused on producing high value coking coal shipments and upgrading its wash plant. The plant assembly is near completion and commissioning is expected to begin towards the end of this February.

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Beacon also made progress on securing an allocation on the rail link to the port of Beira. Minas Moatize Limitada entered into a Rolling Stock Heads of Agreement to lease locomotives and rail wagons on the Sena Rail Line.

"With rail access, new rolling stock and a competitive cost of production, the Minas Moatize Coking Coal mine remains capable of producing healthy cashflow even at today's coking coal prices," Chairman Justin Farr-Jones said.

During the quarter optimisation work continued and a second trial shipment of 18,576 tonnes of thermal coal was dispatched from the port of Beria.

The company also announced a 31% increase in the Joint Ore Reserves Committee Resource at Minas Moatize to 86.8Mt.

The period saw the appointment of Farr-Jones as Chairman and Rowan Karstel as Managing Director who are both working to improve operations and reduce costs.

"Whilst a lot more remains to be done to restore shareholder value, I am optimistic that Beacon Hill has made significant progress with its new management team in a very short space of time," Farr-Jones said.

Shares fell 5.0% to 2.85p at 10:23 Tuesday.

RD