Pilbara plant a major stepping stone for Indonesian copper project
An Australian company developing a copper project in Indonesia has gained an option on a large mothballed plant in Western Australia's Pilbara as a prelude to taking its project to full scale commercial production.
Author: Ross Louthean
Posted: Tuesday , 02 Jun 2009
PERTH -
mineweb.co.za
Finders Resources Ltd (ASX & AIM: FND) has entered into a heads of agreement for an option over the solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW) plant at Whim Creek, owned by Straits Resources Ltd.
Finders' director of development Rob Thomson said the company has the right to purchase the plant and associated equipment at any time between October 1 and the end of this year.
To exercise the deal Finders will pay Straits the equivalent of $A5 million ($US4.05 M) in Straits' shares and will also issue almost 725,000 fully paid shares to Straits as the option fee.
Wetar Island is a large island north of East Timor.
The Whim Creek plant has a capacity of about 18,000 tonnes copper cathode per annum and Thomson said Finders will use these parameters plus an expansion of its existing 2,000 tpa demonstration plant on Wetar Island as the basis for completion of the remainder of the project feasibility study. The Wetar demonstration plant is producing LME grade A copper cathode from the Kali Kung deposit from which it is permitted to process about 100,000 tonnes of ore.
Thomson described the planned acquisition as "a major milestone in the development of the Wetar copper project, and adds robustness and greater certainty to the project economics."
He said purchase of a proven operational SX-EW plant would reduce much of the capital cost uncertainty, and lead time uncertainty, associated with building a new plant.
Finders has a 92% stake in Wetar and also holds 72%, with an option, on the Ojolali gold-silver project in southern Sumatra.
The company is targeting commercial production of between 20-25,000 tpa of cathode by 2010.
At the Ojolali project, Finders controls what it considers to be a major new epithermal gold district, and has been undertaking an extensive exploration programme, including detailed drilling to establish an initial mining resource.
Finders believes Ojolali has strong potential to generate cash flow through open pit CIL/CIP plant. |
