DundeePrecious Metals Inc. said July 25 that a regional power outage hasdamaged the refractory lining of the Ausmelt furnace at the company'sTsumeb coppersmelter in Namibia.

After the back-up systems for power and cooling water didnot operate as expected, cooling water entered the furnace, compromising theintegrity of the refractory lining.

Repairs are expected to take about three weeks, which isexpected to reduce 2016 concentrate throughput by approximately 20,000 tonnes.The company noted that Tsumeb management is conducting a full investigationinto the incident.

In early May, Dundee Precious outlined 2016 in the range of101,000 to 115,000 ounces of gold, 33.8 million to 38.6 million pounds ofcopper, 2.8 million to 3.2 million pounds of zinc, and 319,000 to 354,000ounces of silver.