Atlantic shares higher on production spike

Shares in vanadium and iron ore miner Atlantic have closed higher on the back of stronger monthly ferrovanadium production at the company's Windimurra project in the state's Mid West.

Atlantic subsidiary Midwest Vanadium produced 142 tonnes of contained vanadium at Windimurra during December, compared to 106 tonnes in November.

This represents the highest production level recorded at the plant but is below the 200-300t predicted for the month of December by Atlantic managing director Michael Minosora.

Mr Minosora told Business News last month he hopes to see a steady increase in monthly production to 500t by the middle of the 2014 calendar year.

Vanadium sales more than doubled in December from 32.5t to 70t, with crushing equipment issues limiting shipments to the company's Perth warehouse.

The company has planned three significant maintenance shutdowns at the plant this month to address operational issues which have been holding back production.

"From an operational viewpoint, the focus is to continue to deliver improvements in production on a month to month basis as a result of fine tuning of plant and equipment, improvements in operating procedures and practices and improved maintenance practices," the company said. 

Atlantic hopes stronger production at Windimurra will allow the miner to move toward breakeven on its operating cash flow.

Mr Minosora last month said he anticipated operating cash flow breakeven by the first quarter of next year, and cash flow breakeven after financing costs within the next three to nine months.

Atlantic has lined up high-interest debt funding for Midwest Vanadium from its biggest shareholder, Droxford International, on several occasions this year.

Atlantic shares closed the day's trade 5.9 per cent higher at 18 cents.