TSX- and NYSE-listed Taseko Mines has successfully added a near-shovel-ready copper project to its assets with the successful acquisition of Yellowhead Mining.
The company reported on Friday that the transaction had closed and that Yellowhead’s shares would be delisted from the TSX-V.
Taseko president and CEO Russell Hallbauer said on Friday that the acquisition of Yellowhead was “a meaningful and manageable transaction”, which would “create substantial long-term value for shareholders”.
Yellowhead holds a copper/gold/silver development project located in south-central British Columbia. The project feasibility study dated July 2014, proposed a 70 000 t/d concentrator with total preproduction capital costs of about C$1-billion and an average operating cost of $1.46/lb of copper. The project has an estimated pre-tax net present value of C$1.1-billion.
Hallbauer reported that Taseko was preparing to initiate the provincial and federal environmental review process.
Over the coming months, the technical team would also work on a number of engineering initiatives to improve the economics of the project. These initiatives include water and tailings management, pit design, mill capacity, cutoff grade, metallurgy and processing.
“Our goal is to issue a new [National Instrument] 43-101 technical report by the end of 2019. We believe the project timing is ideally positioned in the copper price cycle and could follow the startup of our Florence copper project,” concluded Hallbauer.
Taseko aims to complete the construction of the Florence project, in Arizona, in the first half of 2020. The project will produce an average of 75-million pounds a year over 20 years.