Nevada Copper's fully permitted Pumpkin Hollow copper mine near Yerington, Nevada, on which detailed engineering is starting, has the capacity to produce 200 million-300 million lb/year for at least 25 years, and probably longer, President and CEO Giulio Bonifacio said Friday.
The Vancouver-based company recently secured $378 million of construction financing and refinancing to build the mine.
"We expect to make a production decision in the next couple of months," Bonifacio said. They are looking to complete construction by 2019, with initial copper output anticipated in late 2019.
Pumpkin Hollow is Nevada Copper's only mining project. Bonifacio sees it as essentially two mines -- an underground operation that will be completed first, followed by a nearby open-pit mine that could be in production in 2021 or 2022. The underground operation has proven and probable reserves of just over 1 billion lb of copper. The open-pit operation has 5.2 billion lb.
Contractors will be brought in to operate the underground mine, Bonifacio said.
Nevada Copper waited for several years until copper prices firmed before moving forward with the project. Copper prices hovered around $2/lb a couple years ago. Following a pullback earlier this week, the Comex price hit $3.30/lb Friday in New York.
Pumpkin Hollow can make money at copper prices of $2.75/lb, Bonifacio said.
Despite the development of several new copper projects in Arizona, Bonifacio said he is not worried about Pumpkin Hollow's profitability. The other projects are smaller, not as far along and not fully permitted, he noted.
For now, Nevada Copper is focused solely on Pumpkin Hollow. Down the road, Bonifacio said "we'll look at other things," including potential organic growth or expansion through mergers and acquisitions.
