PERTH (miningweekly.com) – India’s Aditya Birla Minerals has increased the mineral resource of its copper operations by some 38%, to a total of 248.4-million tons, grading 1.34% copper, for 3.32-million tons of contained copper.
At its Nifty project, Aditya Birla estimated that some 30.6-million tons of resource, grading 2.5% copper was contained in the project area, while the Mt Gordon copper operations were estimated to contain some 164.2-million tons, grading 1.25% copper.
The in-situ oxide and supergene mineral resource at the Maroochydore project was estimated at 43.1-million tons, at 0.91% copper.
The additional resources were identified through a substantial underground drilling programme at Nifty, which delineated the northern and southern limb extensions of the resource area.
At Mt Gordon, updates to the mineral resource model for the Mammoth and Esperanza South deposits impacted resource estimates, along with a review and estimation of the Mammoth and Mammoth Deeps deposits.
Aditya Birla said this week that an aggressive pre-collared diamond drilling programme was planned in 2013 for the Maroochydore project, which would target the potential copper for sulphide mineral resource beneath and adjacent to the Maroochydore oxide resource.