Critical Steps Completed In Van Dyke Assessment
Copper Fox Metals Inc. (TSXV: CUU)and its wholly owned subsidiary Desert Fox Copper Inc. report that the metallurgical and process portion of the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) along with copper production schedules on its 100% owned Van Dyke ISCR project located in Miami, Arizona, have been completed.
Moose Mountain Technical Services (MMTS) is managing preparation of the PEA. Highlights are:
- The base case annual production has been set at 85 Mlbs/year compared to 60 Mlbs/year in 2015.
- The base case production scenario yields an 18-year life of mine (LOM) compared an 11-year LOM in 2015.
- There is an overall reduction in average well length and metres drilled LOM.
- An overall sweep efficiency of 89% has been used with pre-conditioning of the rock accounted for to ensure connectivity of fracturing for copper recovery.
- Metallurgical recovery at 90%, unchanged from the May 4, 2020 resource estimate.
- Preparation of pre-tax and post-tax cash flow models in progress.
Copper Fox President and CEO, Elmer Stewart, said that with completion of these key portions of the PEA, MMTS can complete the capital, operating and sustaining costs estimates and cash flow models.
“The 85Mlbs/year production scenario resulted from a trade-off study that contemplated mine life, capital costs and future development of the project based on exploration potential. With the considerable progress to date, the PEA is expected to be completed by the end of November 2020.”
The injection/recovery well field layout contemplates two phases in line with the underground development plan. The proposed copper production schedule is based on completing the required number of injection and recovery wells each year to maintain production with approximately 1900 injection and recovery wells required over LOM. An overall reduction in the average length of injection and recovery wells and total number of meters drilled over LOM has also been achieved.
Forecasted copper production is a function of solubility of the copper mineralisation and the volume of the mineralization contacted by the injected fluids, a term referred to as “sweep efficiency”. In preparing the copper production schedule, pre-conditioning of the mineralised zone has been accounted for to ensure for a high sweep efficiency. Copper Fox assessed two options for LOM copper production. The 60Mlbs/year option supports a 22-year mine life. The 85 Mlbs/year option (similar in scale to the Florence ISCR project) supports an 18-year mine life. Both scenarios include a ramp up year at 60% of production capacity and a three-year ramp down period at reduced annual production. The 85 Mlbs/year option has been selected as the base case in the PEA.
