From the March Restart Study to bring everyone up to speed.
Geology and Mineral Resource EstimateThe Nifty deposit was discovered in the early 1980s by WMC and is a sediment hosted copper deposit hosted within the Neoproterozoic sub-greenschist facies of the Paterson Orogen, immediately to the east of the Archaean Pilbara Craton and had a pre-mining global resource of approximately 100Mt @ 1.7% Cu (0.5% Cu cut-off).
Copper mineralisation occurred/s as both supergene oxide, sulphide, and transitional mineralisation to a depth of approximately 300m and as stratabound hypogene sulphides hosted by carbonaceous and dolomitic shales, principally within the Nifty carbonate member, to a depth of approximately 600m. The mineralisation is a structurally controlled, chalcopyrite-quartz-dolomite replacement of carbonaceous and dolomitic shale within a folded sequence. The copper mineralisation is largely confined to the northern limb and keel of a significant syncline.
Weathering has altered the mineralisation to a depth of about 200m and
therefore three main styles of copper mineralisation occur at Nifty:1. Oxide dominated mineralisation consisting of malachite, azurite, cuprite, and native copper which extends to depths of up to 100m below the surface.
2. Supergene secondary sulphide mineralisation occurs overlying the base of oxidation. This style of mineralisation is dominated by chalcocite and occurs typically between 100m and 200m below the surface.
3. Primary sulphides occur in quartz-dolomite altered carbonates and shales. The primary copper mineral is chalcopyrite with minor covellite and bornite. Pyrite is a common gangue mineral but only occurs with chalcopyrite on the margins of the deposit. The primary sulphide mineralisation is located mainly in the keel of the syncline.
@FreeflyerNZ Yeah, I agree they may have used some of the HL Retreat? But unsure to what extent. Re-read the R/S and the May MRE upgrade and is not clearly defined to the layman. I guess the ASIC & institutional investors are accepting some information from the data room.
Just doing the math from these documents leaves me lost to some extent. Perhaps there are some on here who can read the figures better could expand on this? Just looking at oxides of 135,500t / 25,000t per annum is 5.42 years. But we have 6.3 years or short of about 20,000t
P10 of the March 22 Restart Study states the existing leach pads have 17.16Mt @ 0.53%Cu = 91Kt of copper metalNov MRE States 11.9Mt oxides at 1.1% for 135,500 Cu . But due to rounding to 1 decimal point is actually closer to 1.14% for 135,500t Cu Metal
May 22 MRE update 16.1Mt oxides @.90% for 144,300Cu. Due to rounding is closer to 0.8965% for 144,300t Cu Metal
So 144,300 Cu t + 91,000 Cu t in HLR = 235,300 Cu t. At 25,000t Cu Metal Plate targeted per year production that takes us to 9.4 years.
Is this the hold up in finance when we know more oxide material is soon to be released to asx? How much of the pre existing HL pads are able to be used in resource estimate? Or is the HL retreat totally excluded and using ROM pad material?
Especially note the last paragraph. Are we waiting for drill and lab results to improve finance metrics?
(20min delay)