May 21 (SeeNews) - Hamburg-based copper producer Aurubis said that the concentrate throughput of its Bulgarian plant, located in the town of Pirdop, fell by an annual 9% to 1.18 million tonnes in the first half of its 2018/2019 financial year, started October 1, 2018.
The decrease in output was a result of an unplanned shutdown, which occurred in the first quarter of the company's fiscal 2018/2019, Aurubis said in an interim financial statement last week.
Cathode output at the Pirdop plant declined 3% year-on-year to 110,000 t, while sulfuric acid production dropped 15% to 607,000 t.
In May and June, Aurubis will carry out a 22-day legally mandatory planned maintenance shutdown of the plant in Pirdop, which is expected to have a negative impact of some 15 million euro ($16.7 million)№ on the company's earnings before taxes.
Aurubis will invest approximately 9 million euro in upgrades of its Bulgarian plant during the shutdown, including boiler repairs. In its previous fiscal year, Aurubis invested 10 million euro in upgrades of the Pirdop plant.
($ = 0.8964 euro)
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