Moly Mines has increased the processing plant design capacity at its Spinifex Ridge molybdenum project in Western Australia"s Pilbara region from 15 to 20 million tonnes per annum.

Moly Mines managing director Derek Fisher says: "The large size of the Spinifex Ridge molybdenum/copper resource can easily accommodate a large expansion in the mining rate.

"These design improvements allow an increase to initial plant throughput with no impact on the project's delivery time, which remains on track for mid-2009.

"The engineering of the changes, to feasibility study confidence level, will result in a delay to the completion of the final feasibility study with the key findings now planned to be released later this month. But the slight delay will not impact on our start up date because we have already ordered long lead items."

Derek Fisher says initial analysis indicates that the increased output, combined with the reduced unit costs and large increase in sales will significantly increase the mine's earnings.