The brand new challenge, Locke provides, will even underpin mine life progress and, extra importantly, assist Marimaca’s objective of accelerating its scale of manufacturing goal to greater than 50,000 tonnes of copper cathode every year.
To purchase the challenge, the corporate pays proprietor Sociedad Contractual Minera Elenita a complete of $12 million over the course of 5 years, in addition to grant SCM a 1.5% internet smelter royalty. As a part of the choice settlement, Marimaca can withdraw from the challenge at any time.
Potential synergies
The Pampa Medina challenge consists of 4 mining concessions totaling 1.44 sq. km., positioned inside the southern portion of Marimaca’s broader 14.5-sq.-km. Sierra de Medina property. It’s also located roughly 28 km in distance and at 200m greater elevation relative to the deliberate processing infrastructure on the Marimaca deposit.
On account of its proximity to the popular plant website of the oxide deposit, CEO Locke says there could possibly be “a number of clear routes for a synergistic growth” to include the Pampa Medina challenge.
Regionally, Pampa Medina is positioned on the japanese area of Antofagasta’s coastal copper belt, which hosts giant, ‘Manto’-style copper deposits together with the Mantos Blancos mine (Capstone Copper) and the Cachorro challenge (Antofagasta Minerals).
Primarily based on roughly 41,000 metres of historic drilling, the challenge presently has a predominantly oxide-based useful resource estimate totalling 12.3 million tonnes grading 0.86% complete copper within the indicated class and 28.1 million tonnes at 0.66% complete copper within the inferred class.
Nonetheless, the useful resource calculations offered for Pampa Medina will not be compliant with NI 43-101 requirements, and due to this fact, Marimaca will take the mandatory steps to evaluation the historic drilling information, with a brand new, compliant useful resource estimate focused for early 2025.
A possible useful resource at Pampa Medina would add to Marimaca’s current useful resource base of over 200 million tonnes grading 0.45% complete copper within the measured and indicated class and 37 million tonnes grading 0.38% complete copper within the inferred class.
“Pampa Medina lies in the midst of one among our most potential exploration targets at Sierra de Medina,” stated Locke. “We’ve accomplished floor geology in and across the historic useful resource, together with a number of geophysical surveys, and are excited in regards to the potential to increase each alongside strike to the north and south, and down plunge to the east-north-east.”