PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed junior Golden Cross Resources on Friday reported that it would focus on enhancing its resource at the Copper Hill copper/gold project, in New South Wales, in an effort to improve project economics.

The developer noted that a series of assessment studies into the economics of the Copper Hill deposit investigated a range of possible production rates, detailing various capital costs, operating costs and revenue streams likely to be achieved.

Using the current spot metal price for both copper and gold, the assessment demonstrated that milling and mill throughput rates of between five-million and eight-million tons a year would provide the best returns.

However, Golden Cross noted that a recent modelled eight-million-ton-a-year production scenario, which ran over a life-of-mine of seven years and yielded a concentrate of 25% copper and 22 g/t gold, had indicated that, while the project would be cash positive, the rates of return were unlikely to attract finance from conventional sources.

“Project economics improve if additional mineral resource tons can be mined and processed, adding to the life of the mine,” the company said in a statement.

Increased grade would also significantly benefit the projected cash flows, Golden Cross noted.

The company would now undertake exploration view at the Copper Hill project to increase the tonnage, and potentially the grade of the project. A 5 000 m drilling programme had been designed to test four mineralised prospects adjacent to the current 153-million-ton resource.

A review of the magnetic anomalies in the south of the exploration licence would also be carried out, with Golden Cross saying that any suitable mineral resource delineation at these target areas would be within trucking distance from a future processing plant at Copper Hill.