{"id":1102410,"date":"2019-02-27T10:52:16","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T10:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=973830"},"modified":"2019-02-27T10:52:16","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T10:52:16","slug":"rio-tinto-may-have-found-its-next-major-copper-mine-in-w-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1102410","title":{"rendered":"Rio Tinto may have found its next major copper mine in W. Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mining giant Rio Tinto\u2019s (ASX, LON:RIO) relentless search for a major copper deposit<\/a> may have finally paid off as it announced it had made a promising find at its Winu prospect<\/a> in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

“It is early days and we have more work to do, but the initial result from drilling are pretty encouraging,” Chief Executive Jean-S\u00e9bastien Jacques said on Wednesday, after Rio posted its highest annual underlying earnings since 2014<\/a>. \u201cWhat is clear is there\u2019s a lot of copper, a lot of gold, a lot of silver, and I’m really looking forward to the second phase [of drilling].”<\/p>\n

The copper-gold-silver discovery is about 130 km. from Newcrest’s Telfer copper-gold mine in the East Pilbara, and close to numerous copper prospects recently discovered by junior miners.\u00a0<\/q><\/p>\n

The copper-gold-silver discovery, a potential major boost for the company’s growth options, is about 130 km. from Newcrest’s Telfer copper-gold mine in the East Pilbara. It\u2019s also close to numerous copper prospects discovered recently by juniors and 350 km southeast of Port Hedland, the world’s largest bulk export port\u00a0.<\/p>\n

Rio said it had already drilled 24 holes and found mineralization close to the surface, adding it will continue extensive drilling in months to come as part of its $250 million exploration program.<\/p>\n

Analysts have questioned Rio\u2019s ability to scale up its copper business quickly without making an expensive acquisition. The company recently had to delay first production<\/a> from the $5.3 billion underground expansion of its Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold-silver mine in Mongolia. Originally scheduled for early 2020, it’s now expected to happen in the third quarter of 2021.<\/p>\n

In December, it sold its entire interest in the\u00a0Grasberg\u00a0mine<\/a> in Indonesia, the world\u2019s second-biggest copper mine, as part of a deal that put an end to\u00a0years of disagreements<\/a>\u00a0between operator Freeport McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) and the country\u2019s government,<\/p>\n

Rio Tinto believes the copper market\u00a0will go into deficit by 2020<\/a>\u00a0as it faces declining\u00a0supplies and increasing demand coming from the electric vehicles sector, infrastructure and renewable technologies.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes barely three months after rival BHP (ASX, LON, NYSE: BHP), the world’s number one miner, made an\u00a0exceptionally rare public disclosure of drilling results<\/a>\u00a0from a very early-stage exploration program in South Australia.<\/p>\n

Experts have called that find since \u201cthe thickest high-grade copper intersection seen in years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Rio Tinto may have found its next major copper mine in W. Australia<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World’s second largest miner has confirmed an “exciting” copper find at its Winu project, in the Paterson Range in the East Pilbara.<\/p>\n

The post Rio Tinto may have found its next major copper mine in W. Australia<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[647,1731,424,404,369,1732,510,440],"tags":[9,15,25,28,33,48,71,78,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1102410"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102553,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102410\/revisions\/1102553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1102410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1102410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1102410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}