Company delays permitting to mid-2025 for additional environmental reviews and First Nations talks.

Western Copper and Gold Corp. Aug. 12 announced that it has delayed the permitting timeline for its flagship Casino copper project in the Yukon, pushing back its application to mid-2025. The company cites the need for more thorough environmental assessments and consultations with First Nations as key factors for the extension.

Situated roughly 300 kilometers (186 miles) northwest of Whitehorse, Casino hosts a large-scale copper-gold-molybdenum deposit that Western Copper and Gold has been advancing since 2008.

Over the years, the project has progressed to the later stages of development, with two prefeasibility studies and a feasibility study having been published.

Building upon these earlier assessments, Western Copper and Gold significantly expanded the Casino deposit, leading to the release of a 2022 preliminary economic assessment that outlines an economically robust mine projected to produce 178 million pounds of copper, 231,000 ounces of gold, 1.36 million ounces of silver, and 16.6 million pounds of molybdenum annually over a 25-year mine life.

This PEA is based on 2.03 billion metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.14% (6.58 billion pounds) copper, 0.17 grams per metric ton (12.1 million ounces) gold, 1.4 g/t (100.5 million oz) silver, and 0.016% (731 million lb) molybdenum; plus 1.46 billion metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.1% (3.28 million lb) copper, 0.14 g/t (6.6 million oz) gold, 1.2 g/t (55.2 million oz) silver, and 0.01% (322.8 million lb) molybdenum.

At this point in the developmental pipeline, the Casino project is progressing through a critical permitting stage, which includes the submission of an Environmental and Socio-economic Effects (ESE) Statement.

This step is crucial for advancing the project toward construction and eventual production. However, Western Copper and Gold has chosen to delay the submission of the ESE statement to mid-2025 to ensure compliance with the latest regulations and to accommodate in-depth engagement with First Nations and other stakeholders.

"Western is committed to ensuring a robust review of the Casino project, as the first and only project in the Yukon going through the highest level of review and relying on the most up to date methodologies in environmental assessment," said Western Copper and Gold CEO Sandeep Singh.

"It was paramount to me when I joined that I became comfortable with our permitting plan before launching into the panel review process and that we were well funded to navigate the assessment process successfully," he added. "We look forward to compiling all the hard work and proper science that has already gone into the project and moving steadily towards submission."

Western Copper and Gold's decision to extend the permitting timeline appears to be a strategic response to heightened regulatory scrutiny following recent events in the Yukon, in particular, the Eagle mine heap leach failure. This cautious approach ensures that the Casino project remains aligned with industry expectations while meeting environmental standards and prioritizing stakeholder engagement.

"We also continue to closely monitor the situation in the Yukon following the Eagle mine failure," said Singh. "The company welcomes the proposed investigation of the failure and believe that Casino's assessment timeline will more than allow for the incorporation of any lessons learned through that process."

The extended timeline allows Western to ensure that environmental standards are met and stakeholder engagement is thoroughly addressed before moving forward.

"We are confident that the Casino project can be a sustainable critical minerals asset for the Yukon, and can be the type of mine that helps improve the Yukon's mining legacy, to the benefit of all Yukoners," the Western Copper CEO added.