Western Copper plans to get more out of Casino

Western Copper (wrn-t) says its Casino gold-copper project in the Yukon can process more ore than previously believed.
The company has been in the midst of updating its prefeasibility study from 2008 ever since it released a significantly larger resource estimate last November.
And while the new study isn’t yet complete, enough metallurgical testing has been done to give the company confidence that it will be able to increase mill throughput to 120,000 tonnes per day without significant losses in recovery or major changes to the milling circuit.
That works out to a 33% increase from the 90,000-tonne-per-day rate that was proposed in the original prefeasibility study.
Perhaps most significantly, the company says increasing the output will come with only a “minor impact” on capital costs.
That’s because there are only minimal changes to the milling circuit required to get more production as the bulk of the increase will come from coarsening the primary grind. Western also says that the throughput increase should bring about lower operating costs per tonne.
Western Copper decided to push ahead on an updated feasibility study after releasing the results of its resource estimate.
That update put 252 million tonnes grading 0.26% copper, 0.25 gram gold per tonne, 0.021% molybdenum and 1.81 grams silver per tonne into the measured and indicated resource. The same update also added to inferred resources as they now stand at 1.7 billion tonnes of 0.14% copper, 0.16 gram gold, 0.019% moly and 1.37 grams silver.
Beyond incorporating the new reserve estimate and more production, the new study will also investigate the economics of silver recovery, update capital and operating costs, and include natural gas fired power as the primary power option.
Since releasing word of the increase in planned production on Jan. 4, Western Copper shares have climbed 11% and were trading for $2.96 at presstime.