PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper developer Orion Minerals has started the partnering and joint venture process for its Prieska copper/zinc project, in South Africa.

The dual-listed company on Thursday told shareholders that it had appointed Macquarie Capital as financial advisers to run the formal partnering process, after receiving expressions of interest from third parties relating to the potential acquisition of, or subscription for, a significant project-level ownership interest in the project.

“Prieska is a high-quality base metal asset of global significance and we believe there are a number of significant benefits from evaluating alternative funding and development pathways that could include the scale of a project-level strategic equity interest,” said Orion MD and CEO Errol Smart.

“Given the size of the deposit, the scale of the development opportunity and the quality of the metal concentrates, Prieska is already attracting significant interest from a number of parties.”

Smart said that Orion believed that identifying and engaging with the right partner could help the company unlock the full potential of the deposit, and ultimately deliver an integrated funding and development package that would minimise dilution for shareholders, while retaining significant exposure to the substantial cash flow that will be generated by a long-life base metal operation.

“We have already held discussions with a number of parties that could bring technical, financial, corporate and strategic expertise to the table. We are looking forward to engaging formally with these and other parties over the coming months to see if we can crystalise a transaction that would generate a positive outcome for all stakeholders and help to fast-track the development of a substantial new-generation African base metals mine.”

The Prieska bankable feasibility study estimated that the 2.4-million-tonne-a-year operation would require a capital investment of A$378-million, with the ten-year foundation phase expected to produce 189 000 t of copper and 580 000 t of zinc.

Ongoing value engineering and optimisation work is currently being undertaken, with the aim of completion early in the next quarter, with Orion hoping to finalise the partnering transaction by the third quarter of this year.