Nevada Copper making progress at Pumpkin

Vancouver – Nevada Copper (NCU-T) continues to steadily advance its sizable Pumpkin Hollow copper project with an updated resource and more permits secured.

With two water-related permits and a reclamation permit issued, the company now has the needed State and County permits to start developing underground access to the Eastern deposits of the project.

The company’s plan is to first use the access to explore the project from underground, then scale up to a 7,300-tonne-per-day underground mining operation on the private patented land that hosts the Eastern deposit. Later on Nevada Copper will add a 54,400-tpd open pit operation by incorporating the Western deposit.

Nevada Copper has a pretty good idea of the contained copper on the property after completing 50,000 metres of delineation drilling in 2010, bringing total drilling to more than 275,000 metres over some 600 holes.

The global resource, using a 0.2% copper cut-off, now stands at 482 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.55% copper, 0.1 gram gold per tonne and 2.71 grams silver per tonne for 5.9 million lbs. copper, 1.6 million oz. gold and 42 million oz. silver.

Of course, with underground mining proposed for at least part of the Eastern deposit, the area will have a higher cut-off. Using a 1% cut-off for the Eastern deposit, it is estimated to contain 30.4 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 1.45% Cu, 0.34 gram gold and 8.37 grams silver. The Western deposit, keeping with the 0.2% cutoff, hosts 374 million tonnes grading 0.46% copper, 0.07 gram gold and 1.99 grams silver.  

The global inferred resource, using 0.2% copper, stands at 449 million tonnes grading 0.37% copper, 0.03 gram gold and 1.51 grams silver.

The updated resource is being factored into a definitive feasibility study due out at the end of June. The company has not had a study on the project since a late 2009 preliminary economic assessment update.

Nevada Copper is looking at starting the stand-alone underground operation as early as the end of 2013, while the open pit mining will need more planning, permitting and studies.

The company still has a number of steps before it reaches full-fledged mining, but it looks to have the support of influential locals. Both Lyon County Manager Jeff Page and Mayor of Yerington Doug Homestead expressed in a prepared statement the need for jobs in the area and the benefits the project could bring.

The 57-sq.-km property sits in western Nevada, 13 km from Yerington and about an hour and a half southeast of Reno.

Nevada Copper’s share price was up 51¢ on the day of the permitting news to an all time high of $6.38, having climbed from a low of $1.82 last July. The company has 58.7 million shares outstanding.