The Minto open pit mine has become Yukon's the first hard rock mine in five years to be in production.

The Sherwood Copper Corp. announced this morning the first amount of copper-gold concentrate has been produced, as its wholly-owned Minto Explorations Ltd. has begun firing up the mill at the mine site south of Minto Landing.

'We put out the press release because everybody is pretty excited about it on-site, and to acknowledge their efforts that they have achieved it,' Sherwood president Stephen Quin said in an interview this morning by phone.

'Before that, everything was just talk, and now it's reality.'

Quin explained the next month or so will be dedicated to identifying and working out any bugs, as is typical with the startup of any mine.

As was forecast in the feasibility study, it's expected the Minto mine will be at about 50 per cent of its production capacity in July, he said.

Quin said it is significant, however, to demonstrate the mine can get the ore from the open pit, run it through the mill and actually stockpile concentrate in the storage shed.

The mining plan predicted it would hit its initial target of a full 1,560 tonnes per day by the end of September, though the company is attempting to speed up the schedule.

Quin said he expects the first truck load of concentrate will be shipped to the Port of Skagway in July, and stockpiled there until the first overseas shipment in September.

The Minto mine has already started work on phase two of the planned mill expansion, to bump production up to 2,400 tonnes per day.

The company has announced the possibility of a phase three mill expansion, as exploration drilling on the property is continuing to identify potential for new deposits close by.

Quin said under normal operation, Sherwood Copper will employ about 66 employees to run the Minto mine, with another 30 contract employees working on stripping and exploration.

Both milling and mining the open pit will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Not all 96 will be on-site at once, with a part of the crew out on days off at any given time, he explained.

Quin pointed out, however, that altogether, there are 180 on-site today, with the presence of the JDS Energy and Mining, the construction company that has been putting together phase one of the mill.

It's looking like the construction crew will take the month of July off, then return in August to continue on with phase two of the mill, he said.

The Minto mine is currently using the barge owned by Jacob's Industries of Whitehorse to go back and forth across the Yukon River.

Quin said sections of the company's own barge and tug will begin arriving at Minto Landing next week for assembly, and is scheduled to be operational in July.

The initial feasibility study called for a mine life of 7.2 years. However, the company has announced previously there is the potential to extend the life by three or four years, or more, with the additional ore bodies being identified.

Quin said this year's exploration budget its estimated at $3.5 million.

The last producing hardrock mine in the Yukon, the Brewery Creek gold mine in the Klondike region, ceased operations in 2002.