PDATE 2-Century Mining shares sink on crusher failure

PDATE 2-Century Mining shares sink on crusher failure

Lamaque cone crusher fails, whole circuit down for 9 days in Feb

* Mill throughput fell to 788 tpd in Feb from 944 tpd in Jan

* Says halted ops in North Wall ore area till more funds are available

* Shares fall as much as 33 pct (Adds comments from company executive, updates share movement)

March 8 (Reuters) - Canada's Century Mining Corp on Tuesday said a recent crusher failure at its Lamaque gold mine in Quebec drained its finances, forcing the company to halt development work in another part of the mine.

Shares of the company shed a third of their value on Tuesday on the Toronto Venture Exchange. They were the second-most actively traded stock with over 7.7 million shares changing hands.

Century Mining said the failure of the cone crusher cost the company $200,000 in repair, not including the impact of the loss of production at the mine, which was down for about nine days in February.

The company also said it had to stop development activities at the North Wall ore area of the mine, a move that could push back mining in the area till May.

"It did affect our cash flow, so we had to slow down the work on the North Wall, and we had to stand down our contractor until we get back into financial position where we can bring them back on," Chief Operating Officer Adrian McNutt told Reuters at the annual PDAC mining convention in Toronto.
The company declined to comment on the possible impact on production or financial results.

The company has also put all other capital programs, which included ramp-up of ore production, on hold.

Mill throughput in February was 788 tonnes per day (tpd), down from 944 tpd averaged in January, the company said. Average production in February at the mine was an average of 1,168 tpd.

The company had expected to produce 70,000 to 75,000 ounces of gold at Lamaque in 2011, but is currently reviewing the impact of the failure of the crusher circuit.

Century Mining said the crusher failed on Feb. 17 and the entire crusher circuit -- the part of mine operations that reduces large ore blocks to powder or manageable chunks -- was offline for nine days.

Shares of the company reversed some of the losses to trade down 16 percent at 59 Canadian cents. (Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar, Additional reporting by Cameron French; Editing by Prem Udayabhanu)
http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNews/idAFL3E7E81L520110308?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

» Senior Mining Companies Stocks Still Offer Good Value - Adrian Day
» Endeavour Mining looks in Africa, Latin America for producing mines
» Queensland Mining Corporation maiden JORC of 19,400oz gold at Gilded Rose
» Mining news summary: BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Ferrexpo, Weatherly Intl, Arian Silver
» U.K.’s FTSE 100 Slides for Third Day; Randgold Resources, Weir Shares Fall