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Largo Resources achieves record daily production at the Maracas mine

Published: 16:42 15 Jul 2015 EDT

Largo-Marac
Largo has made an effort to increase production since production began in August 2014

Largo Resources (CVE:LGO) produced 26 tonnes of vanadium pentoxide in a single day at its Maracas Menchen mine in Brazil, achieving just about full , that is 100%, design capacity on July 13.

This was not a singular event; indeed, Largo has been enjoying a rather prolific period, setting progressive production records on an almost daily basis.

July began with Largo producing 24 tonnes of V2O5 in a single day, achieving 90% capacity. Days later the total amount produced for the day reached 25 tonnes at 94% capacity.

More importantly, Largo has consistently maintained the high productivity rates, such that the project has produced at or above 24 tonnes (that is at a minimum of 90% design capacity) for a total of four days and at around 20 tonnes (at or above 80%) for a total of 10 days.

“We are extremely pleased to demonstrate that the Maracas Mine can produce at its intended design capacity over a single day. Now our goal will be to start lining up several of these days in a row. We have had a great start to the month already with 10 days at or above 80% capacity. There is still lots of work ahead, but this new record re-affirms our confidence that we are on the right track,” said Largo’s CEO, Mark Smith.

Largo has made an effort to increase production since production began in August 2014. In the past few months, the Maracas Menchen mine occasionally managed to hit production rates in the 21 to 23 tonnes per day, or 79-81% capacity.

The company has also seen recoveries at the project increasing significantly, achieving greater stability thanks to technical improvements are made at the plant it can expect to achieve new single day, weekly or monthly production boosting management’s confidence that the production ramp up has been a success.

Quality targets have also been met. The end-product vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) has met standard specifications since first production thanks also to the adoption of a dry-magnetic separation unit to compliment the milling and beneficiation system.

Largo also plans to add another leach tank to increase the leaching residence time and improve the system's recovery and availability as well as a leaching system back-up belt filter to increase the system's capacity and overall availability.

The month over month performance improvements serve as a solid foundation for continued growth and the Toronto-based miner is expecting 2015 production to come in at 17 million pounds of vanadium pentoxide, at a cost of US$4.15 per pound, although costs are expected to drop to US$3.21 per pound by the end of 2015.

Looking out to 2016, the company also has the option to complete a $32 million expansion, which would raise capacity by some 50 percent and make Maracas the largest and lowest cost vanadium mine in production.

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