The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Optimization being incorporated into FS slated for October North of 60 Mining News – September 17, 2021
Stacks of core from drilling by previous operators at the Kutcho copper-zinc project in Northern BC.
Kutcho Copper Corp. Sept. 13 said it expects the feasibility study for its Kutcho copper-zinc project in Northern British Columbia to be completed in October. While this is later than originally planned, the company says the anticipated mine optimizations and improvements will be worth the wait.
A 2017 prefeasibility study, completed immediately prior to Kutcho's acquisition of the project, considers the development of a 2,500-metric-ton-per-day operation that would produce 378 million pounds of copper and 473 million lb of zinc, plus by-product precious metals over a 12-year mine life.
Kutcho, however, has expanded the resources since acquiring the project.
According to a calculation completed earlier this year, the three deposits that make up the Kutcho project – Main, Esso, and Sumac – host 18.58 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 1.78% copper, 2.58% zinc, 0.47 grams per metric ton gold, and 32.8 g/t silver; plus 13.24 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.11% copper, 1.6% zinc, 0.25 g/t gold, and 20.6 g/t silver.
This resource served as the foundation for a feasibility study that was originally slated for completion around mid-year.
Following a series of trade-off studies, however, Kutcho Copper has elected to make several enhancements to the design and engineering of the project that the company believes will unlock significant accretive economic value.
"Given the significant scope of the design improvements between the 2017 PFS and the FS, we now anticipate the results of the feasibility study to be announced by the end of October 2021," said Kutcho Copper President and CEO Vince Sorace. "We believe this short delay is well worth the benefit in realizing the full and enhanced economic potential of the project for all our shareholders and partners."
Highlights of project optimizations to be incorporated in the upcoming feasibility study include:
• Open-pit mining the majority of the Main deposit, which allows the company to better capitalize on the high-grade, near-surface mineralization found there. The remainder of the Main deposit and all of the Esso deposit will continue to be evaluated for underground mining.
• Based on this new mining scenario, an updated resource has been calculated with a lower cut-off grade that is compatible with more open-pit mining. According to this new calculation, Kutcho hosts 22.8 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 1.52% (765 million lb) copper and 2.18% (1.1 billion lb) zinc. The deposits also host 288,000 oz of gold and 20.6 million oz of silver in the measured and indicated resource categories.
• The feasibility study will also consider a 4,500-metric-ton-per-day operation, which is significantly larger than the 2,500 tpd mill considered in the 2017 PFS.
• This optimized operation will also incorporate ore sorting, which is expected to result in higher grade feed and reduced flotation plant size, thereby reducing capital and operating costs.
• The feasibility study will also include improved metallurgical recoveries compared to prior studies.
The feasibility study will also include environmental enhancements that include a more compact project footprint that avoids sensitive fish habitat; an open pit design and scheduling focused on minimizing the potential for acid rock drainage and metal leaching; backfilled open pit and underground mine workings to reduce the surface footprint; and a tailings management facility accommodating the reduced tailings from the flotation plant as a result of the introduction of ore sorting.
The Kutcho project is located within the overlapping territories of the Kaska Dena and Tahltan nations, and the company has worked closely with these First Nations during the design process for the proposed copper-zinc mine.
In July, Kutcho began negotiations with the Tahltan Central Government, the administrative governing body for the Tahltan Nation, for economic participation agreements for the proposed mine.
"Negotiations for our recently announced economic participation agreements with the Kaska Nation and the Tahltan Nation will be based on the optimized Project design," said Sorace. "Together, all these factors will allow us to continue advancing the Project towards permitting and a production decision."
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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