A Restart Study for Cyprium Metals Limited’s (ASX: CYM) Nifty Copper Project in Western Australia’s Pilbara Region has highlighted a robust initial oxide project with the potential for strong financial returns.
The Nifty Copper Project is 100% owned by Cyprium. It has been in care and maintenance since 2019 and the basis of the new analysis is the JORC 2012 Mineral Resource Estimate released in November 2021. It does not include the recent released drilling results from the within the South-West and South-East of the presented pit shape.
“We are very pleased to announce the results of the Nifty Copper Project Restart Study. The fundamentals of the project are robust, which excludes the addition of an updated Mineral Resource Estimate to be completed in the coming months and the conversion of inferred resources during the pit mining,” Managing Director Barry Cahill said.
“Metallurgical optimisation continues to have success with our heap leach metallurgy knowledge clearly showing an improved treatment path for the oxide material considering over 200,000 tonnes of copper metal cathode has already been extracted and produced using a heap leach process on this site.
“A great effort by the team to get this study completed within a year of acquiring the project. We now look forward to getting the finance completed and accelerating construction to plating copper metal by the second half of next year.”
Nifty Background
The Nifty Copper Project comprises ~266 sq. km of mineral tenements of which ~234 sq. km is granted as a State Agreement Act Mining Lease (M271SA) and the remainder are pending conversions from three mining lease applications (covering the East Nifty bore field extensions) to mining leases.
There are many miscellaneous licenses held by third parties which co-exist on the properties covering existing bore fields, and other essential mine infrastructure including a gas spur pipeline. The tenure is held via Cyprium’s 100%-owned subsidiary, Paterson Copper Pty Ltd, with the Nifty mine and infrastructure and associated tenure held by Cyprium’s operating subsidiary Nifty Copper Pty Ltd.
The Paterson Copper Pty Ltd assets are in the northeast Pilbara region of Western Australia, approximately 330km east-southeast of Port Hedland and 65km west of the Telfer Gold Mine.
The Nifty operation has produced more than 700,000 tonnes of copper metal between commencement of the oxide operation in 1993 and November 2019, when the mine was placed into care and maintenance.
The single deposit is still ranked in the top twenty copper mineral resources by insitu copper metal tonnes in Australia, with considerable potential to increase this further.
A 2012 JORC compliant Mineral Resources estimate of 732,200 tonnes contained copper within an open pit mine, with substantial infrastructure including:
• 2.8 Mtpa sulphide concentrator (in care and maintenance since November 2019).
• 25 ktpa copper cathode heap leach SX/EW facility (in care and maintenance since January 2009).
• 21 MW gas turbine power station and gas pipeline.
• Water supply and reticulation systems including multiple bore fields. • Mine village with a capacity of approximately 400 persons.
• Sealed all weather airstrip.
• Upgraded 4G communications infrastructure. Restart of the heap leach SX/EW facility at the historic Nifty Copper Operation will involve the following:
• Recommencement of open pit mining.
• Refurbishment of existing heap leach agglomeration, stacking/materials equipment, and irrigation systems.
• Refurbishment of the existing leach pads to place new oxide material on for leaching.
• Construction of additional leach pad capacity for retreatment of the existing heap leach pad material. • Refurbishment of existing SX-EW facilities.
• Re-instatement of supporting reagent/utility systems.
The Restart study demonstrates a robust heap leach solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW) operation in the initial stage of the project.
The Restart is focused around the first phase of heap leach retreat and oxide open pit, and it is envisaged that the life will extend to the sulphide stage of the open pit with a considerably larger resource available.
The sulphide study has already commenced with design optimisation and metallurgical testwork currently being undertaken.
For further information please visit: https://cypriummetals.com/
