Argentina’s sole iron ore producer MCC Sierra Grande expects to recover full operations by the end of the year, when it plans to bring water supplies back to normal with a new aqueduct, the company said.
The lack of water has resulted in low operating rates at MCC Sierra Grande’s iron ore concentration plant. The Ventana aqueduct is currently around 50% completed.
In addition to the aqueduct, the company is also building a seawater desalination plant aimed at relieving water shortages, which is expected to begin operating in 2016.
During March, the company received Argentinian Pesos 55 million ($6.5 million) from the state government of Rio Negro to reconstruct an aqueduct that supplies the company and the city of the same name.
A heavy rainstorm hit the province on April 2014, damaging two aqueducts. Only one has been repaired so far.
Repairs on the second aqueduct will be completed by the end of the year, but water supplies — “even at low levels” — are expected to resume in the next months.
MCC’s Sierra Grande mine is located in the Rio Negro province in southern Argentina. The company has invested more than $100 million in the project, which features an extraction capacity of roughly 2.8 million mt/year that is processed into 1.3 million mt/year of concentrate averaging 68.55% Fe.
The company has been extracting iron ore on the site since 2007.
Source: Platts