WMLLF - Co. Makes New Plan To Take Copper Project to Production | Benzinga
Source: Streetwise Reports 05/28/2024
Given this fresh approach, consisting of two concurrent phases, several catalysts are slated to happen this year and next. Learn more about the envisioned low-cost mining operation.
World Copper Ltd.'s (OTC: WCUFF) primary focus now is advancing the past-producing Zonia copper oxide porphyry project in Arizona to a bankable feasibility study and then proceeding into construction and production, according to a corporate update.
"Our seasoned team are looking to put the asset into production within three to five years and at a quarter of the costs of conventional concentrate operations" the company said in the release.
The Vancouver, British Columbia-based mineral explorer-developer's new plan for Zonia involves two phases of work, which will be carried out concurrently. Phase one pertains to the part of the project on private land. It will entail converting a large portion of the existing Inferred resources outlined in the 2022 resource update, 122,000,000 tons (122 Mt) of 0.24% copper, into the Indicated category. (Measured + Indicated resources are 75.7 Mt of 0.33% copper.) This resource conversion likely will require some infill drilling to be done.
Other activities slated for this phase are obtaining land and water use permits and carrying out metallurgical studies, mine planning, engineering, financing modeling, and construction planning.
Phase two will target copper mineralization on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)-owned land that surrounds Zonia. This will involve obtaining permits, a longer process than in phase one, as well as doing environmental studies and exploration drilling.
"Our BLM lands are three times the size of our private land package and have the potential to increase our copper resource exponentially" the release noted.
Zonia also boasts a strategic location, said the company, in that the project could supply the domestic U.S. refined copper market. Arizona, where about 71% of the global copper supply is produced, is deemed by the Fraser Institute to be the world's seventh most attractive mining jurisdiction.
To see Zonia through to production, World Copper created a Technical Advisory Committee to which it appointed two mining professionals, Derek White and Joe Philips, the release noted. White, most recently, built the Premier gold mine in British Columbia and, previously, as KGHM International's former chief executive officer, the Sierra Gorda mine in Chile and the Carlota mine in Arizona. Philips has led construction at 14 different mining operations in 11 countries.
World Copper's second copper oxide project, Escalones, is in another favorable jurisdiction, Chile. Regarding this asset, the company is in discussions ...