During October, the total mining movement rate at the North Queensland mine was up 30% compared to September, with 105,000 tonnes of material moved, including more than 31,000t of ore.
Centrex expects production of 56,000t of beneficiated concentrate for the first half of the 2023-24 financial year and hopes to hit an annualised production rate of 240,000t per annum by January 2024.
If achieved, that milestone would come three months before schedule.
The target for the 2024 calendar year is 440,000t.
Crusher capacity is at about 100t per hour following delivery and commissioning of the first stage of the circuit.
The final stage of the crushing circuit is due on site in mid-November.
Once that is commissioned the circuit's total crushing capacity will be 275tph.
Centrex chief executive officer and managing director Robert Mencel said Centrex had developed greater visibility into the increased future demand for Ardmore's product, following pre-qualification shipments to offtake partners over the past year
"This increased future demand has enabled us to begin front-loading investment by increasing mining and processing rates, in anticipation of sending larger shipments," he said.
"This is also why Centrex made the commitment to move to an owner-crushing model."
Mencel said Ardmore represented a highly capital-efficient mining operation.
"We look forward to developing Ardmore into a significant supplier of rock phosphate in the Asia-Pacific region," he said.
Shipments are increasingly getting bigger, with the record 17,263t load sent off on September 13 surpassed by the single biggest shipment to date on November 5, of 20,510t.
Mencel said Centrex was working to increase shipment sizes to 30,000t by mid-2024.
The company has also reduced the moisture specification of its standard product to 6.5% and started producing a sub-5% moisture product.
First shipment of the new product is pencilled in for early January.
Centrex has more than 6000t of beneficiated concentrate in containers at Townsville port for the next shipment, with 14,000t on drying pads.
