Emerging copper company Cyprium Metals has upgraded its mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the existing heap leach pads at the Nifty copper mine in Western Australia, marking the first MRE update for this material at the mine since 2015.
The indicated and inferred MRE for the Nifty heap leach equals 12.7 million tonnes (Mt) grading 0.43 per cent copper for contained copper of 54,050 tonnes.
The updated MRE is supported by JORC standards and incorporates new data from a 2021 sonic drill program, which was run in support of previous feasibility studies.
Cyprium said the analysis of samples obtained from the sonic program have supported important metallurgical inputs on the drilled resource.
“This is back-to-basics execution,” Cyprium executive chair Matt Fifield said.
“Restarting the cathode plant is the next logical step for Cyprium’s new management team and the first phase of Nifty’s redevelopment. To move towards operations, we need comprehensive and up to date resource information.
“Our team produced this MRE by going back to first principles, organising and incorporating all prior existing data, and including new analysis from the 2021 sonic drill program. The result is the first updated MRE since 2015 for the unrecovered copper on Nifty’s heap leach pads. It’s a strong foundation on which we can build our forward plans.”
Cyprium said historical records shows that 17.2Mt of mined material was stacked on the heap leach pads at Nifty, with the amount containing 311,169 tonnes of copper in aggregate.
“Looking back at the history of the site, we see that cathode production at Nifty stopped abruptly when the new underground mine began,” Fifield said. “The owner at the time was primarily interested in supplying feed to the concentrate market from the now abandoned underground mine.
“The result was that the cathode plant was shut before its time, leaving unrecovered copper in the heap leach material. This is Cyprium’s near-term commercial opportunity.”
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