The restart of the Pumpkin Hollow underground copper mine, in Nevada, is making progress, with plans in place to restart the mill by the middle of next year, Toronto-listed Nevada Copper CEO Randy Buffington said on Monday.

The company, which recently agreed a nonbinding funding package that will provide it with $93-million of liquidity, has spent the past few weeks focusing on ensuring that it is prepared for the restart of underground operations.

“We have made significant progress in developing the plans, recruiting the people and implementing the systems necessary to derisk the restart. We have attracted several key technical positions and built the initial underground team to be able to execute on the first critical projects, primarily the remaining two dike crossings required to access the East North (EN) zone.

“We believe that taking a careful, phased approach to restarting the mine removes some of the bottlenecks the operation has faced in the past and will facilitate a rapid ramp-up to nameplate capacity once the mill restarts in mid-2023,” said Buffington.

Consulting firm John Wood Group has completed a mine plan for Pumpkin Hollow, focusing on accessing the larger, higher-grade stopes in EN zone. The mine plan features an optimised stoping sequence that brings value forward in the life-of-mine and derisks the restart by advancing development activities and building significant underground inventory ahead of restarting the mill in mid-2023.

In September, the company reinitiated development activities with one mining crew focused on completing the second dike crossing. It is anticipated that the crossing will be completed and well advanced beyond the geological dike feature within the next 30 days, at which time the crew will move onto the third and final dike crossing.

In addition, Nevada Copper is preparing to issue bid packages to interested development contractors to perform underground development activities and for completion of the remaining capital projects.

In early 2023, the company plans to begin rapid development with the use of a development contractor to advance into the higher-grade stopes of the EN zone and build significant underground ore inventory.

The company will continue to recruit additional underground personnel to prepare for stope mining in the second quarter of 2023.