Overview
Stage | Preliminary Economic Assessment |
Mine Type | Open Pit |
Commodities |
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Mining Method |
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Mine Life | 27 years (as of Jan 1, 2023) |
The Los Azules project is among the largest undeveloped copper deposits on the globe.
The future mine promises to be among the first major copper projects to be designed around regenerative principles from the ground up.
The Project includes the development of an open pit mine with muti-stage crushing and screening, a heap leach pad, and a copper solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX/EW) facility with a nominal production capacity of 175 ktpa copper cathodes. |
Source:
p. 1,2
McEwen Copper Inc. holds a 100% interest in the Los Azules copper project in San Juan.
McEwen Mining owns 47.7% of McEwen Copper which owns 100% of Los Azules.
October 16, 2023 - After closing the Nuton LLC investment, also announced today, McEwen Copper will have 30,937,615 common shares outstanding, and its shareholders are McEwen Mining Inc. 47.7%, Stellantis 19.4%, Nuton 14.5%, Rob McEwen 12.9%, Victor Smogon Group 3.2%, and other shareholders 2.3%.
Contractors
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Summary:
Los Azules is located within the Central Chile segment (400 km-long) of the Miocene-early Pliocene porphyry copper belt (6,000 km-long) of the north and Central Andes.
In many respects the Los Azules deposit is a classic Andean-style porphyry copper deposit. In the bedrock below a thick surface cover of scree and valley fill, a barren leached zone overlies a zone of secondary or supergene enrichment of variable copper grades and thickness. Primary or hypogene mineralization extends to at least 1,000 m below the present surface. Circulation of meteoric ground water near surface leached primary sulfides (mainly pyrite and chalcopyrite) from the host rocks over the past several million years and the leached copper was redeposited below the water table in a sub-horizontal zone of supergene enrichment as secondary chalcocite and covellite. Hypogene bornite appears at deeper levels together with chalcopyrite. Gold, silver, and molybdenum are present in trace amounts, but copper is by far the most important economic constituent at Los Azules.
Starting at the boundary between the barren leached zone and the supergene mineralization, secondary enrichment mineralization gradually transitions to predominately hypogene mineralization at depth.
Sillitoe (2014) examined about 9,000 m (approximately 25% at the time) of the available drill core and proposed a revised geologic interpretation for Los Azules.
Sillitoe’s interpretive model has features in common ........
Summary:
The Los Azules deposit grades, geometry, and depth make it suitable for conventional, large-scale truckshovel open pit mining methods. This includes the use of equipment such as blasthole drills, diesel hydraulic excavators, electric shovels, large off-highway haul trucks, and associated operations support equipment.
Two Cu cathode production rate cases were assessed during the mine engineering and planning process. A 175k tpa Cu cathode production scenario which is the ‘base case’ and a 125k tpa Cu cathode production scenario which is the ‘alternate case’.
Open pit mining would take place in phases from an initial starter pit, allowing for a shorter pre-strip and earlier access to mineralized material for processing. For the 175k tpa Cu cathode production base case, the material mined over the two-year pre-production period is 117.8M tonnes of which 16.8M tonnes is mineralized material that is either stockpiled or crushed and placed on the heap leach pad. There is a rampup in annual production to year 8, when peak material movement is reached at 175M tonnes. Material movement tonnage stays at approximately 175M tonnes through to year 12, 95.7M tonnes of lower grade mineralized material is stockpiled during these periods. The material moved decreases to approximately 75M tonnes and stays at this rate until the end of mining in year 21.
Total material stockpiled during the mine life is approximately 285.8M tonnes. Stockpiled material is rehandl ........
Source:
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Flow Sheet:
Summary:
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Source:
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Reserves at May 9, 2023:
Mineral resources are determined using an NSR cut-off value to cover the processing cost for each recovery methodology. For supergene and primary material going to the leach pile the cutoff was $2.74/t. For supergene going to the mill the cutoff was $5.46/t and primary material going to the mill was $5.43/t.
Category | Tonnage | Commodity | Grade | Contained Metal |
Indicated
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1,235 Mt
|
Copper
|
0.4 %
|
10.94 B lbs
|
Indicated
|
1,235 Mt
|
Gold
|
0.049 g/t
|
0.46 M oz
|
Indicated
|
1,235 Mt
|
Silver
|
1.07 g/t
|
10.01 M oz
|
Inferred
|
4,509 Mt
|
Copper
|
0.31 %
|
26.7 B lbs
|
Inferred
|
4,509 Mt
|
Gold
|
0.035 g/t
|
4.24 M oz
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Inferred
|
4,509 Mt
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Silver
|
1.22 g/t
|
149.07 M oz
|
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