The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Renewed copper-gold mine study considers larger deposit North of 60 Mining News – December 18, 2020
In addition to a much larger deposit, the Casino mine project will benefit from road access being funded by the federal Resource Gateway Project.
Western Copper and Gold Corp. Dec. 14 announced the start of a new preliminary economic assessment that will consider mining a much larger resource at its Casino project in Canada's Yukon.
A feasibility study completed in 2013 envisioned utilizing both a mill and heap leaching to recover the copper, gold, silver, and molybdenum found at Casino. Western Copper, however, has more than doubled the size of the Casino deposit since that study was completed.
According to a calculation completed earlier this year, Casino hosts 2.17 billion metric tons of millable measured and indicated resources averaging 0.16% (7.43 billion pounds) copper, 0.18 grams per metric ton (12.7 million ounces) gold, 1.4 g/t (100.2 million oz) silver, and 0.017% (811.6 million lb) molybdenum; plus 1.43 billion metric tons of millable inferred resource averaging 0.1% (3.24 billion lb) copper, 0.14 g/t (6.4 million oz) gold, 1.2 g/t (53.5 million oz) silver, and 0.01% (322.8 million lb) molybdenum.
This is a 106% increase in the millable measured and indicate tonnage over a 2010 resource estimate that formed the basis for the 2013 feasibility study. The amount of copper and gold in these categories has increased by 3.3 billion lb and 6.6 million oz, respectively.
The measured and indicated heap leach resources at Casino also increased from the 2010 estimate and are now at 217.4 million metric tons averaging 0.03% (166.5 million lb) copper, 0.25 g/t (1.8 million oz) gold, and 1.9 g/t (13.3 million oz) silver.
"By more than doubling the measured and indicated mill resource, the Casino project is clearly one of the largest copper-gold projects in the world. This resource and the results of this year's drilling program will be incorporated in an updated feasibility study in the future," Western Copper and Gold President and CEO Paul West-Sells said in July.
The PEA is the first step toward the completion of this feasibility.
Based on the expanded 2020 resource calculation, the PEA will consider a large open-pit mine feeding sulfide ore to a mill and oxide ore to a heap leach facility that will recover gold, silver, and copper.
The primary objective of the PEA is to demonstrate positive economic indicators that justify further project development steps, including the completion of a feasibility study that provides further details for a mine that Western Copper can resubmit for permitting.
In anticipation of positive outcomes from the PEA, Western is developing a plan for engineering, field investigations, test work, permitting and community relations activities to support the development of a feasibility study for the project.
"Starting with a PEA will allow the company to quickly assess changes to the project and outline updated economic returns of the Casino project before launching a full updated feasibility study," said West-Sells.
The PEA is currently slated for completion by mid-2021.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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