new deposit at lumwana

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New deposit at Lumwana


Rebecca Keenan


Wednesday, January 12, 2005
EQUINOX Minerals has discovered a new copper deposit at its flagship Lumwana copper project in Zambia and is now working towards an initial resource at the deposit by next month.

The discovery of the Chimiwungo North deposit is the result of the first exploration conducted at the project in over 30 years. The grades and widths intercepted to date at the deposit are similar to the nearby Chimiwungo orebody, which has a resource of 139.1 million tonnes grading 0.76% copper.

"The Chimiwungo North discovery confirms the outstanding potential of the Lumwana region to host additional copper deposits and validates the Equinox exploration strategy applying geological concepts and modern geophysical technology to discover previously unrecognised copper mineralisation," said Equinox managing director Craig Williams.

The new discovery is open to the east and north and results from the last two holes of the recent drilling campaign are expected next week.

Chimiwungo North is located about 3km from the proposed 18 million tonnes per annum processing plant.

The plant is part of the operation which is due to come online in 2006-07, at a cost of US$300 million. A feasibility study by Aker Kvaerner indicated the project would have a net present value of US$236 million using a 10% discount and a copper price of US85c per pound.

Equinox has also moved to take 100% ownership of the project. Prior to earning this stake it held 51% with copper giant Phelps Dodge holding the balance.

Shares in Equinox gained 3.4% in late morning trade to 60c.