Marimaca Copper has filed the preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of its namesake copper mine in Antofagasta, Chile.
The company originally estimated 70mn mt of mineral resources, graded at 0.6pc Cu. According to the PEA filed on September 3, the Marimaca project is expected to produce 430,000mt of copper during its 12-year mine-life and 40,000mt of copper cathode during the first six years of operations.
The company needs to invest $285mn as a pre-production cost and is expecting a capital investment of $7,125/mt of copper produced, it said while releasing the PEA results. Marimaca is assuming a revenue of $524mn in the first two-and-a-half years of production at a fixed copper price realization of $3.15/lb. Subsequently, the project will return $640mn during the first 2.4 years, assuming a flat long-term copper price realization of $3.45/lb.
The PEA states an all-in-sustaining cost of $1.22/lb of copper produced by employing conventional open pit mining using readily available sea-water. Explorations for copper sulfide and oxide deposits to extend the operating life of the Chilean mine are ongoing.