The mill restarted last week and has 160,000 tonnes of stockpiled material on hand for processing. More development ore and subsequent stope ore will be hoisted through the East North Ventilation Shaft until final outfitting work on the main shaft is completed, which is expected by year-end.

The operation is expected to produce up to 60Mlb of copper a year from underground ore.

Nevada Copper chief executive Evan Spencer said the workforce had remobilised and the operation had transitioned back into production smoothly.

The company said it had implemented additional health and safety measures to address COVID-19 risks during the restart of the processing plant.

Last month the company secured C$97 million (US$71 million) through a bought deal financing to alleviate its "serious financial difficulty".

The company said it would use the net proceeds to fund the restart and ramp-up of production from its Pumpkin Hollow underground mine, repay a US$30 million convertible loan from its largest shareholder Pala Investments, repay other outstanding indebtedness including a further US$9.6 million to Pala, and for general corporate purposes.