Taseko Reports Q3 Copper Production Increased 30%

Taseko

announces 2013 third quarter total production of 36.7 million pounds of copper and 284,000 pounds of molybdenum at its 75% owned Gibraltar Mine. Russell Hallbauer, President and CEO of Taseko, commented, "Optimization of the grinding circuits continued in the third quarter, as evidenced by the 30% increase in copper production. Mill availability increased from 83% in the second quarter to 87% in the third quarter. There still remain significant opportunities for further mill throughput increases as we move toward the target availability of 93.5%. Copper production in the third quarter also benefitted from improved recoveries as well as higher head grade." "The operations team is continuing to gain a thorough understanding of how to best manage ore feed to the two concentrators and we expect production improvements still to come. Important in this integration is how we will process certain types of ore, with differing characteristics, which may allow the concentrators to function above design capacity. To provide some insight into the benefits of this approach, in the last two weeks of September, the mills processed an average of 95,000 tons per day. Mine to mill optimization is an