This resulted in the delivery of lower grade or to the mill, which negatively affecting recoveries and concentrate grades, the company's CEO Ralph Shearing said.

"In addition, the mine installed a copper recovery flotation circuit to begin producing copper concentrate, foregoing lead concentrate production to take advantage of the significantly higher price of copper over lead," he said.

"These factors along with downtime due to equipment failure and regular maintenance plus some inflationary cost increase resulted in decreased Campo Morado profit during the first half of 2022," he said.

He added that management is "confident" that these difficulties are behind them.

Red Cloud Securities said it had been expecting Altaley to record a profit of C$0.03.

It noted that Campo Morado produced 8,603 tonnes of Zn concentrate, 951tof Pb concentrate, and 1,870t of Cu concentrate, which compares to Red Cloud's estimates of 9,542t, 1,469t, and 5,684t, respectively.

"We anticipate steady improvements as the company ramps up Tahuehueto to 1,000tpd and continues to produce a Cu concentrate at Campo Morado, which has added another revenue source at the mine," Red Cloud said.

Altaley's share price fell 6% day on day to C$0.15 on 31 August. Red Cloud has a C$1.00 target for the company. It has a market capitalisation of C$41.84 million.