details..28 May 2019 18:50
"Production could begin by end-2021 at the Cascabel copper-gold project in Ecuador pending the completion of studies and permitting, project operator SolGold's exploration manager Jason Ward said Monday at the CRU World Copper Conference in Santiago, Chile.
The company is targeting a feasibility study by 2020 which will focus on the Alpala deposit, where a recent initial resource estimate published in January outlined 430Mt grading 0.78% copper equivalent in the indicated category and 650Mt grading 0.62% copper equivalent inferred.
The study will follow a PEA and prefeasibility study which could be completed in 2018 and 2019, respectively, Ward told BNamericas on the sidelines of the event. SolGold is lining up an independent firm to manage the studies and is close to finalizing the selection process, he added.
Permitting and an approximately one-year construction period will follow.
The maiden resource estimate was based on some 53,000m of drilling and some 40,000m more have been completed, paving the way for updated resource estimates, the first of which could come within three months, said Ward.
The geologist noted that of the more than 1Bt resources defined so far at Alpala, there is a high-grade core of roughly 120Mt grading 1.8% copper equivalent.
"I'm pretty confident we can double that and that alone would be enough. In three years we'd pay it all back. We'd have a 20Mt production per year for the first couple of years, ramping up to 40Mt per year," said Ward.
That annual throughput rate works out to about 55,000t/d, with a final rate of close to 110,000t/d. The concentrator will produce a copper-gold concentrate that will travel downhill by pipeline, using gravity, to port at Esmeraldas.
The operation will be a single block cave and boast low operating costs, according to Ward, who said that electricity costs will be US$0.4-0.6/kW, while abundant water and existing infrastructure in the area will provide minimum capex savings of US$3bn compared to a greenfield development-project high in the Chilean Andes.
"All of these numbers will come out in the feasibility of course, but this is our thinking at the moment," Ward said.
The plan is to build a decline starting at the Chinambicito target 6km north of the Alpala deposit, which will head south between the Tandayama and Aguinaga deposits under land that has been purchased by SolGold, said Ward, noting that previous plans to start the decline at a location to the northeast called San Pedro have changed due to the existence of a village there.
The company's "fast track" development program is dependent on obtaining permits and social license, Ward said, noting for reference that permitting took one year at the Fruta del Norte project. "We'll work on that concurrently while we are doing the feasibility study."
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