{"id":1110703,"date":"2019-04-12T21:10:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T21:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/resourceworld.com\/?p=55335"},"modified":"2019-04-12T21:10:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T21:10:55","slug":"taseko-copper-project-achieves-production-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1110703","title":{"rendered":"Taseko copper project achieves production milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Florence in-situ copper project 65 miles southeast of Phoenix, Arizona. Source: Taseko Mines Ltd.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Taseko Mines Ltd. <\/strong>[TKO-TSX; TGB-NYE American] on Friday April 12 announced the first copper production from its 100%-owned Florence Project in Arizona. Florence is an in-situ copper recovery project, located midway between Phoenix and Tucson, near the community of Florence.<\/p>\n

The facility is expected to produce an average of 85 million pounds of copper annually for 20 years at an average operating cost of US$1.10 a pound.<\/p>\n

In September 2017, with all permits in place, the company made the decision to proceed with construction of the Florence Copper Phase 1 in-situ copper recovery facility.\u00a0 Probable reserves at the site stand at 345 million tonnes, grading 0.36% copper.<\/p>\n

The Phase 1 facility, which includes 24 injection, recovery and monitoring wells and an SX\/EW plant, was completed in the third quarter of 2018.\u00a0 In December 2018, wellfield operations were commenced and injection and recovery systems fully ramped up.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the company said the production test facility is fully operational, from the wellfield to the SX-EW plant and producing copper. Over the past three months, approximately 1.5 million tonnes of copper ore has been contacted underground with leach solution.<\/p>\n

Taseko shares advanced on the news, rising 5.19% or $0.04 to 81 cents. The shares trade in a 52-week range of 60 cents and $1.80.<\/p>\n

The company said copper concentrations in the solution has recently risen to levels which have allowed the SX\/EW to begin operation and produce copper.<\/p>\n

As reported in Taseko\u2019s 2017 technical report, the initial leaching period has taken approximately three months and all results are in line with the company\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n

With the entire test wellfield and SX\/EW plant now operating as a continuous unit, TKO plans to use the coming months to refine operational parameters, which will help with the ramp up of the commercial plant.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Taseko aims to have a financing package in place to enable it to start construction of the commercial facility in the new 12 months.<\/p>\n

Taseko\u2019s flagship asset is its 75%-owned Gibraltar copper-molybdenum mine near Williams Lake in south-central British Columbia. It ranks as the second largest open pit copper mine in Canada and the largest employer in the Cariboo region.<\/p>\n

Gibraltar is expected to produce approximately 130 million pounds (plus or minus 5%) on a 100% basis in 2019. That is comparable to levels achieved in 2018.<\/p>\n

Copper price volatility made the sector a challenging environment for many aspects of Taseko\u2019s business in 2018, the company has said. In 2018, the price of copper fluctuated between US$3.25 and US$2.60 a pound.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we expect higher copper pricing in 2019, we have made a number of mine plan adjustments and spending curtailments to address the current weaker pricing environment,\u201d Taseko President and CEO Russell Hallbauer said recently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taseko Mines Ltd. [TKO-TSX; TGB-NYE American] on Friday April 12 announced the first copper production from its 100%-owned Florence Project in Arizona. Florence is an in-situ copper recovery project, located… Read more »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"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":[622],"tags":[33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110703"}],"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\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1110703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1110704,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110703\/revisions\/1110704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1110703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1110703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1110703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}