Cradle Arc (LON:CRA) shares plummeted on Tuesday morning, after the company issued an update.
The precious metals exploration and production firm said that a combination of less available ore being delivered and ‘sporadic’ interruptions due to plant outages impacted production.
Cradle Arc said it now expects production levels to be around 10 to 20 percent lower than previous forecasts.
Actual production of contained copper totaled 292 tonnes and 242 tonnes for July 2018 and August 2018 respectively, the company added.
Despite the various interruptions at Mowana, Cradle Arc said that it had uncovered approximately 2 million tonnes of accessible transitional and supergene ore in Mowana North pit and North Rim Extension.
The company expects said it expects the ore to deliver recoveries for the remainder of the year up into 2019, mitigating losses.
Kevin van Wouw, Chief Executive of Cradle Arc, stated:
“In spite of the continued sporadic interruptions being experienced at the Mowana processing plant, we have made good progress with our open pit mining activities with a large amount of waste stripping completed in order to lay the groundwork for a strong period of ore delivery going forward.
“Whilst production during Q3 has been disappointing and our overall production guidance for H2 2018 is under review, we are working hard to get Mowana on a sound and sustainable footing for what could potentially be decades of production, given the recent renewal of our permits along strike to the north of the open pit.”
Cradle Arc is listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. As of currently, the exploration firm owns a 60 percent stake in the Mowana copper mine in Botswana.
Shares in the company are currently trading -22.38 percent as of 12.18AM (GMT), as investors react to the trading update.