Horseshoe Metals accelerating drive to DSO operations at Horseshoe Lights copper project
Move will bring the company closer to early cash flow
Copper surface material being considered for DSO operations
Special Report: The prospect of early cash flow from its Horseshoe Lights copper project in WA has prompted Horseshoe Metals to accelerate plans to start direct shipping ore sales from existing high-grade stockpiles.
Horseshoe Lights is the original copper-gold VMS discovery in Bryah Basin and sits about 60km west of the third party DeGrussa copper mine.
Notably for Horseshoe Metals (ASX:HOR), the project had previously produced 316,000oz of gold and 55,000t of copper and still hosts an in situ resource of 128,000t copper at an average grade of 1%, a M15 stockpile resource of 2650t copper at 1.1% and a flotation tailings resource of 6800t copper at 0.48% and 15,300oz gold at 0.34g/t.
The company had previously assessed the M15 as one of the possible sources of direct shipping ore (DSO) material.
DSO to deliver early cash flow
HOR is currently advancing discussions with potential copper concentrate offtake partners and is considering non-dilutive offtake funding.
To make early cash flow a reality, the company expects to start site activities early next month and is currently carrying out an assessment of the copper surface material.
Besides the M15 stockpile, the company has also considered the M20 and Subgrade stockpiles along with rehandle and surface pimple dumps located on the North Waste dump, Gold tailings and Southern low-grade stockpile.
It noted that the coarse material is easily scavenged utilising loaders and excavators equipped with sieve buckets.
Additionally, while previous test work has indicated that the oxide material at the project is amenable to acid leaching followed by either cementation or SXEW copper recovery, material from the stockpiles will be tested to determine the viability of a pilot/small scale operation to recover copper cement as a first step to assist in the feasibility study for oxide copper production at a larger scale.
The amenability of the fines material remaining in stockpiles and pimple dumps to Heavy Media Separation is also being investigated.
An assessment is also underway to determine if enough information is available to complete a resource calculation of surface resources outside of existing resources at M15 and the sulphide tailings while a review is being undertaken into the oxide and sulphide copper targets within a 200km radius of Horseshoe Lights.
Future activities
HOR plans to carry out additional RC and/or auger drilling of the North Dump, gold stockpiles, copper low-grade oxide and low-grade sulphide stockpiles as well as auger drilling of the gold and copper rehandle areas.
It will also carry out acid leaching test work on oxide copper stockpiles and targets along with gravity recovery test work on copper flotation and CIP tailings.
This article was developed in collaboration with Horseshoe Metals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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