Bell Copper and Marimaca Copper have found new deposits of the red metal in Phoenix, Arizona, and in Antofagasta, Chile, respectively.
Marimaca Copper announced an updated discovery of copper oxides and sulfides in its namesake mine in Chile in a recent news release. Sergio Rivera, the company’s vice president of exploration, said that a recent magnetic survey has confirmed the company’s estimate of mineral deposits present in the mine.
According to Marimaca’s updated mineral resource estimate (MRE), the mine currently holds 70mn mt of 0.60pc copper (about 420,000mt of contained copper) and 40mn mt of 0.52pc copper (approximately 224,000mt). This marks a 100pc increase from the MRE in 2018 and one of the largest copper oxide discoveries in Chile in the past decade.
Bell announced in a release on July 20 that it has acquired Big Sandy – a copper-molybdenum mine adjacent to a lithium project run by Hawkstone mining in the US Battery Corridor.
In a recent development, the company found manganese-copper oxide deposits close to the surface of Big Sandy’s riverbed. The grade of copper found is similar to ‘Exotica’ found in Codelco’s Chuquicamata mine in Chile, the company noted. Moreover, fanglomerate clasts (supergene copper minerals) have been found across a distance of 745 yards in the mine. Final estimates of the mineral deposits are now being made by Quantec Geoscience in a magnetotelluric survey.