FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE…Vancouver, British Columbia: World Copper Ltd. (“World Copper” or the “Company“; TSXV: WCU, OTCQB: WCUFF, FSE: 7LY0) is pleased to provide a general corporate update regarding the Company’s assets and direction.
Zonia Project Update
Going forward the Company will be focusing its efforts on the Zonia Project (“Zonia“) as our flagship asset, with the aim of working to advance Zonia to a bankable feasibility study and then proceeding into construction and production.
Given the current global copper supply deficit, management’s belief is that the short-term solution to the copper supply crisis will come from smaller more efficient copper operations, which are cheaper to build and have less environmental impacts. Recent events in the sector have shown that major mining companies are hesitating to take on very large-scale, high capital intensity projects by looking for partners to share the risk and costs, or by targeting smaller assets and innovative or conventional leaching technologies.
Zonia fits into these new copper market dynamics perfectly offering a viable smaller scale and lower cost operation that can be permitted and constructed in half the time required on average to develop new larger concentrate mines. Being a past producer, Zonia’s mineralization is pre-stripped resulting in a 1:1 strip ratio for our new operations, and it has power and water on site.
We recently announced the formation of a Technical Advisory Committee that will play a lead role in the proposed development and construction of the Zonia mining operation. Derek White and Joe Philips have joined us as advisors at World Copper. Derek is an industry leader in the copper sector having developed and built several copper mines. As the former CEO of KGHM International he built the Sierra Gorda mine in Chile and the Carlota mine in Arizona. Most recently he completed construction of the Premier Gold mine in BC. He is a consummate mine builder. Derek will guide the World Copper team in taking Zonia down the path to production. Joe Philips brings a wealth of mine building experience having lead construction on 14 mining operations in 11 different counties. His upgrading and expansion of the SX-EW plant for Tres Valles in Chile will be of particular importance to our Zonia development process.
Our seasoned team are looking to put the asset into production within 3 to 5 years and at a quarter of the costs of conventional concentrate operations. Zonia is uniquely positioned with a strategic location in Arizona allowing it to supply the domestic US refined copper market, which is currently in dire need for US-manufactured cathodes, Zonia has the potential to become a net-zero facility benefiting from low energy consumption, favorable energy mix and emission compensation returns.
World Copper has adopted a two-phase plan to move the Zonia project down the production track. Phase one would target only the portion of the project located on private land. Phase two will target copper mineralization located on non-private land so that it could be permitted for future inclusion into the anticipated mine plan. To satisfy the parameters of a bankable feasibility study Phase one will move to convert a major portion of the inferred resources in from the PEA to indicated resources. This will most likely entail an infill drilling campaign. Other Phase one programs will include environmental studies, land and water use permits, metallurgical studies, mine planning, engineering, financing modelling and construction planning.
Phase two programs will comprise primarily of permitting the BLM land (non-private) that surrounds the Zonia private land, environmental studies, and some exploration drilling. Our BLM lands are 3 times the size of our private land package and have the potential to increase our copper resource exponentially. These phase two programs will be initiated in parallel with the phase one activity as the timeline to receiving exploration and mining permits for these areas are longer.
Zonia’s historical preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in 2018 concluded that the economics of the project are excellent and gives World Copper the assurance to advance the project through feasibility. The historical PEA outlines an open-pit, copper-oxide heap leach project with a 9-year mine life and favourable economics. The base case uses a $2.00/lb designed pit shell with a grade cutoff of 0.17% total copper. The PEA was prepared by Global Resource Engineering Ltd. (“GRE”) of Denver, Colorado, in accordance with the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) NI 43-101. GRE reported on the scoping-level capital and operating costs, and project economics associated with the potential development of the Zonia copper oxide project. The full report entitled “Preliminary Economic Assessment, NI 43-101 Technical Report Zonia Copper Project Yavapai County, Arizona, USA” with an Effective Date of March 22, 2018, and an Issue Date of April 17, 2018, is available on SEDAR+ or can be downloaded using this link.
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