Sherwood Copper ups ante for Minto deposit

Sherwood Copper Corp. dashed out of the starting gate this spring, racing not only to bring the Minto project in northern Yukon Territory to production as early as the second quarter of 2007, but also to boost anticipated copper production from the tri-mineral deposit to 40 million to 50 million pounds per year.

Sherwood, a Vancouver, B.C.-based junior mining company, is eager to capitalize on high metals prices, especially for copper, and a projected worldwide shortage of at least 100,000-120,000 tons a year of that precious metal. Copper is currently selling for about $3 a pound, while gold is hovering around $575 an ounce and silver is trading at about $10 per troy ounce.

Expansion feasible

A new feasibility study for development endorses expanding copper production at Minto to 2,400 tonnes per day. An earlier analysis completed in the late 1990s during a period of low copper prices and capital constraints envisioned production of 1,560 tonnes per day.

"The feasibility study evaluating the development of the Minto copper-gold project in the Yukon is in the final stages of completion," Stephen Quin, Sherwood's president and CEO, said in a statement May 16. "In the meantime, we are rapidly advancing the development of the mine site, have commenced waste pre-stripping and our exploration program is in full swing."

Consulting engineers Hatch Ltd. is expected to finalize the feasibility study by June 30, Sherwood spokesman Murray Sykes said June 13.

Discovered in 1973 by ASARCO, the Minto deposit is about 150 miles north of Whitehorse near the Yukon River. Minto's total resource is estimated to be about 340 million pounds of copper, 155,000 ounces of gold and 2.0 million ounces of silver in the measured and indicated categories, and another 13 million pounds of copper, 6,000 ounces of gold and 0.1 million ounces of silver in the inferred category, using a cut-off grade of 0.5 percent copper.

The project's previous owners invested C$10.1 million in construction. Mill foundations were poured, ball and SAG mills purchased and moved to the site and a mine camp constructed. Developers also connected the site to a permitted Yukon River crossing with a 29 kilometer gravel road. But the project stalled on depressed copper prices in 1998.

Sherwood acquired 100 percent ownership of Minto from Falconbridge, Teck Cominco, ASARCO and others last year for about C$9 million, plus future considerations.

Aggressive development

With expanded development plans, Sherwood has estimated total direct and indirect capital needed to bring Minto into production at C$33 million. The company raised more than $11.2 million in new capital earlier this year.

Sherwood is already acting on major changes in its development plan, pursuing a 50 percent throughput increase by the first year of operations and a doubling of camp size to accommodate the expanded operations. The company also is pre-stripping significantly more waste to allow mining of higher grade material earlier, with the objective of producing more copper sooner.

Sherwood launched development activities in early April and exploration for the 2006 season in early May.

Sherwood is also enlarging the camp area at Minto, reopening the 1970s airstrip and developing a location for operations fuel storage and generators. Workers are expanding the level area around the plant to accommodate plant expansion, and haul roads are being upgraded to provide access to various parts of the property for large-scale mining equipment.

Waste pre-stripping is under way in the pit area, and will be on-going for the next 10 months in order to open up the highest grade portion of the copper mineralization for extraction and processing in the first year of operations, company officials said. Lower grade material with less than 1 percent copper will be stockpiled for later processing.

Sherwood is also placing orders for long lead time units of equipment to ensure their availability and that the company can meet its development schedule of copper production during the second quarter of 2007.

Exploration a priority

Sherwood plans to conduct a major exploration program through October at Minto to expand high grade resources and to test new targets. Workers aim to complete about 50,000 feet of core drilling in 2006, using two drill rigs working around the clock.

The main objective of exploration this year is to add mineral resources in and around Area 2, which lies about 1,000 feet southeast of the proposed Minto open pit and appears to be the southward continuation of the same mineralization.

Three Sherwood drill holes completed in March confirmed the potential of this area to host significant high grade copper-gold resources last tested by five drill holes in the early 1970s. Area 2 is where Sherwood intersected multiple mineralized horizons in March, including intercepts of up to 2.7 percent copper and 2.1 grams per ton gold over 15 meters (including 3.85 percent copper and 2.8 grams per ton gold over 7.5 meters) as announced March 23 and April 4.

In April and May, contractors completed several holes deeper than 1,000 feet in Area 2. One drill rig will continue working in Area 2 for most of the summer with the objective of delineating resources in a satellite deposit by year-end. A second rig began work in May on evaluating the potential of several exploration targets to host new copper-gold deposits, with plans to drill up to 30 penetrations in as many as six other targets.

Sherwood hopes to process more than 700,000 tons of ore per year with an initial life expectancy for Minto production of 11 years. The company is also currently studying the feasibility of shipping ore concentrate to market via the Port of Skagway in Alaska.