May 2, 2013
This release should be read with the Company’s Financial Statements and Management Discussion & Analysis (“MD&A”), available at www.tasekomines.com and filed on www.sedar.com. Except where otherwise noted, all currency amounts are stated in Canadian dollars. Taseko’s 75% owned Gibraltar Mine is located north of the City of Williams Lake in south-central British Columbia. Production volumes stated in this release are on a 100% basis unless otherwise indicated.
May 2, 2013, Vancouver, BC - Taseko Mines Limited (TSX: TKO; NYSE MKT: TGB) (“Taseko” or the “Company”) reports the results for the three months ended March 31, 2013.
Highlights
For the three months ended March 31, 2013, Taseko had gross profit of $13.2 million, a net loss of $10.5 million and adjusted net loss of $2.9 million. This compares to gross profit of $20.3 million, net loss of $6.3 million and adjusted net earnings of $3.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2012.
Russell Hallbauer, President and CEO of Taseko commented, “This first quarter of 2013 will be the last quarter that Gibraltar will operate as a single line facility. With concentrator #2 now operating at approximately 75% of design capacity after only 35 days of operation, the site will no longer be as dramatically impacted by mill downtime as it has in the past. In April, concentrator #2 processed approximately 600,000 tons of ore and averaged an 83% copper recovery. Overall the site processed just under two million tons of ore over the same period, nearly a 30% increase over March.”
“In the last two weeks of April, excluding a scheduled two day maintenance down, concentrator #2 averaged in excess of 28,000 tons per day and copper recoveries averaged 85%.”
Mr. Hallbauer continued, “In the first quarter of 2013, an additional 4.7 million tons were mined, compared to the fourth quarter 2012. Even with the increase in tons moved, Gibraltar’s net operating cost of production decreased by $0.23 per pound compared to the fourth quarter 2012. While a portion of this is related to the capitalization of some of the mining costs as a result of new accounting policies, most of the cost savings were associated with the increased copper production. Going forward, we expect unit costs to continue to decline as copper production increases and mining operations benefit from significantly shorter waste hauls.”
Taseko will host a conference call on Friday, May 3, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time (8:00 a.m. Pacific) to discuss these results. The conference call may be accessed by dialing (877) 303-9079, or (970) 315-0461 internationally. Accompanying presentation slides will be available to download at tasekomines.com. Alternatively, a live and archived webcast will also be available at tasekomines.com.
The conference call will be archived for later playback until May 9, 2013 and can be accessed by dialing (855) 859-2056 in Canada and the United States, or (404) 537-3406 internationally and using the passcode 45756422.
For further information contact:
Brian Bergot, Investor Relations - 778-373-4545, toll free 1-800-667-2114
Russell Hallbauer
President and CEO
No regulatory authority has approved or disapproved of the information contained in this news release.
This document contains “forward-looking statements” that were based on Taseko’s expectations, estimates and projections as of the dates as of which those statements were made. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “outlook”, “anticipate”, “project”, “target”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect”, “intend”, “should” and similar expressions.
Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company’s actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These included but are not limited to:
For further information on Taseko, investors should review the Company’s annual Form 40-F filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission www.sec.gov and home jurisdiction filings that are available at www.sedar.com.