The company stated that heavy weather events had affected hydraulic mining, which impacted slurry density and feed at the processing plant.

New Century mined 2.34 million tonnes at 2.92 per cent zinc in the March quarter, 5 per cent down from the December quarter.

Zinc metal production was also impacted, decreasing by 6 per cent to 30,433 tonnes.

With the Queensland wet season now over, New Century managing director Patrick Walta said performance had since improved.

“Century operations continued to deliver solid operational performance in the March quarter despite the heavy wet season experienced across north-eastern Australia,” he said.

“With the wet season now concluded, operational performance has progressively improved and April is on track to deliver a record monthly EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) performance.”

The company expects Century throughput to continue increasing due to the passing of the wet season.

In April, New Century also highlighted that the 2021 annual zinc concentrate benchmark treatment charge (TC) was 47 per cent lower than last year at $US159 ($204.35) per tonne.

The TC is used to form zinc concentrate smelting contract pricing, with the new price expected to improve the company’s production rate.

New Century owns the Century zinc mine in Queensland and restarted production in August 2018 after it was placed on care and maintenance in 2016.

More than 500,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate has been shipped from the Century mine since operations restarted.