August 3 (SeeNews) - Canada's Dundee Precious Metals (DPM) said that the construction of its Krumovgrad gold project in Bulgaria has fallen slightly behind schedule but it still expects first concentrate production late in the fourth quarter, as initially planned.
At the end of June the project was approximately 71% complete based on installed quantities, compared with an initially planned completion of 78% at that stage, DPM said in its interim financial statement published earlier this week.
"Additional civil construction resources were mobilized to site to mitigate delays experienced with concrete installation," the mineral exploration company said.
By the end of June, DPM had spent $111.6 million (96.1 million euro) on the Krumovgrad project. The total estimated cost is expected to be $164-168 million, slightly lower than the initial estimate of $178.2 million made in 2015.
Based on its mineral resource estimates, DPM expects the mine to produce 85,700 ounces of gold and 38,700 ounces of silver per year. Ore was hauled to the ore stockpile and will be fed to the plant during the hot commissioning process, which is expected to take place in the third quarter of 2018.
Last month, DPM completed the first production blast in the Ada Tepe mine, at the Krumovgrad project, with 1,700 tonnes of waste and 1,600 tonnes of ore blasted and excavated.
DPM received the main construction permit for the project in August 2016 and commenced earthworks later that year.
DPM also operates the Chelopech gold and copper mine in Bulgaria.
($ = 0.8615 euro)