Taseko closes Gibraltar financing

Vancouver — Taseko Mines (TKO-V) has an exclusive right to acquire a limited partnership that has raised $1.8 million to research technology aimed at reviving the Gibraltar copper mine, near Williams Lake, B.C.

The Hunter-Dickinson-led junior sold 1,850 limited partnership units of Gibraltar Engineering Services (GESL) at $1,000 per unit. The proceeds will be used to research hydrometallurgical technology designed to extract pure copper from concentrates.

Taseko can acquire the partnership business for $2.2 million, based on a premium over the feasibility costs incurred.

In August 2000, a scoping study concluded that a hydrometallurgical refinery would result in a 22% reduction in copper production costs. The savings would be incurred by eliminating the cost of transporting concentrate to offshore processing locations and reducing smelter charges.

Under such conditions, Taseko believes, production could continue for at least 12 years. The combined cost of starting up the mine and building the refinery is pegged at $120 million.

Taseko acquired the 35,000-tonne-per-day mine-and-mill facility in 1999 and began assessing its potential for producing copper cathode from concentrates using an innovative hydrometallurgical process developed by CESL, a division of Cominco (now Teck Cominco [TEK-T]).

Gibraltar was a large-scale, 37,000 tonne-per-day open-pit operation with an accompanying solvent extraction-electrowinning circuit. Boliden (BOL-T) acquired the mine when it took over Westmin Resources in early 1998, and then suspended operations as a result of high operating costs in a weak copper market and ongoing capital requirements.