Mining and processing has started at the Celesta copper project, located near the town of Curionópolis, in northern Brazil, with first concentrates due to be shipped in early August, reports TSX-listed Lara Exploration.
Lara owns a 2% net smelter return royalty on the project and a 5% carried (to production) equity interest in the operating company Celesta Mineração, which is jointly operated by partners Tessarema Resources (with 40% interest), and North Extração de Minério (with 55% interest).
Ocean Partners UK has provided project finance in exchange for life-of-mine offtake rights.
Celesta’s mining programme will initially focus on the Osmar target that has an indicated resource estimate of 2.14-million tonnes, with average grades of 4.2% copper and 0.66 parts per million gold.