PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper miner Tiger Resources has doubled the expected net present value (NPV) of its Stage 2 solvent extraction electrowinning (SX-EW) operation at the Kipoi project, following a recent ore reserve increase.
Earlier this month, Tiger announced a 112% increase of the ore reserve at the Stage 2 Kipoi operation, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, taking the openpit mineral reserves to 30.14-million tonnes, grading 1.31% copper for 394 500 t of contained copper.
The new reserve was incorporated into a previous definitive feasibility study, which resulted in the project’s after tax NPV increasing to $755-million.
Copper cathode production forecasts have also increased by 41%, to 532 000 t over an 11-year period instead of the initial 9 years, while the life-of-mine cash costs have decreased by 8.7% to $1.04/lb.
The project’s after tax internal rate of return has also increased by 143% to 107%.
The SX-EW plant would start copper cathode production in the second quarter of this year, and would produce about 25 000 t of copper cathode in its first full 12 months of production.
Production would then increase to 50 000 t/y for the remainder of the project life.
Tiger was currently producing copper concentrates from its Stage 1 heavy mineral sands plant, and was expected to produce 39 000 t of copper in concentrate during 2014.