Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals executives said Tuesday there is sufficient space on its private 1,250-acre Copper World site on the west side of the Santa Rita Mountains to construct open-pit mines and processing facilities to handle recent discoveries of high-grade sulfide and oxide copper ore.
“We have adequate land on which to deposit tailings as well as on which to deposit waste rock,” Hudbay CEO Peter Kukielski told stock analysts during the company’s Aug. 9 conference call to discuss 2nd Quarter financial results.
Kukielski said the Copper World project could proceed separately from the $1.9 billion Rosemont Mine on the northeast side of the Santa Rita Mountains, which was stopped after a 2019 federal court ruling that is now on appeal.
“Rosemont remains a priority for us,” Kukielski said, “but Copper World presents a super exciting potential alternative or addition.”
Hudbay intends to complete a preliminary mineral resource estimate by the end of this year and a preliminary economic assessment in early 2022, he said. This “should give you a sense of the value that we place on this deposit and the potential alternative or incremental effect that it could have with respect to Rosemont,” Kukielski told analysts.
Hudbay says it will spend $35 million by the end of this year on exploring at least four historic deposits at Copper World that could be developed into several open-pit mines and possibly connect to the Rosemont deposit.
The ongoing exploration is also looking to see if the copper discoveries “extends on to government land,” Cashel Meagher, Hudbay senior vice president, and chief operating officer told analysts. Hudbay’s private land holdings are adjacent to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management property and very close to Arizona state land holdings at the Santa Rita Experimental Range.
Hudbay is operating drilling rigs at four historic copper mining areas called Broad Top Butte, Copper World, and Peach-Elgin. Hudbay is using the name Copper World to encompass the four west side deposits. The Copper World deposits lie between one and three miles north and northwest of the Rosemont deposit.
Rosemont Mine opponents, including Save the Scenic Santa Ritas and the Center for Biological Diversity, say mining on the west side of the Santa Rita Mountains will wreck scenic views from Green Valley and Sahuarita, destroy more biologically diverse open land and trigger the pumping of more groundwater.
Drilling began in October 2020 and the company said it has drilled 220 holes with at least one as deep as 600 feet. Hudbay reports it has completed 85,000 feet of drilling. The results so far indicate “a significant amount of high-grade copper, close to the surface, available to mine,” the Arizona Daily Star reported on Aug. 7.
The Copper World deposits are much closer to the surface than Rosemont, which will require about a year of removing rock before the ore body is reached. Because of the easier access to ore, Meagher told analysts the Copper World deposits “will present a very positive set of economics moving forward.”
The company says it won’t be ready to discuss Copper World’s potential for mining in detail until early next year when it releases a preliminary economic assessment of the deposits, the Daily Star reported last week. “Any decisions on next steps will be based on the results of that study,” the company told the newspaper.
The development of the $1.9 billion Rosemont open-pit mine was stopped in July 2019 by a Tucson U.S. District Court for violating federal law after the U.S. Forest Service agreed to allow Hudbay to dump mine waste on thousands of acres of public land that have no mineral value. Hudbay and the Forest Service appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which is expected to release a decision later this year.
Kukielski told analysts regardless of the appeals court decision, other litigation and possible appeals mean it will be “several years” before any work could potentially begin at Rosemont. Kukielski said Hudbay intends to “push Copper World forward very hard” regardless of what happens with the Rosemont’s legal issues.
Unlike the Rosemont deposit, which requires approval from several federal agencies, Hudbay’s west side copper deposits would have far fewer permitting hurdles. Kukielski said the company would only need state aquifer protection and air pollution permits. Rosemont opponents filed and eventually lost lawsuits seeking to overturn the air pollution and aquifer protection permits that the state-issued for Rosemont.
Hudbay published a detailed press release last March 29 stating that its exploration drilling at the four sites found copper from at or near the surface to depths up to 600 feet. The press release includes drilling data and a three-dimensional graphic package that shows the potential to link the Rosemont mine deposit with the deposits within Copper World.
Hudbay’s enthusiasm about the Copper World deposits stands in sharp contrast to what the previous owner of the land said in letters provided to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about whether the sites were suitable alternatives to Rosemont.
Vancouver-based Augusta Resource Corp., which was purchased by Hudbay in 2014, told the Army Corps that Broad Top Butte, Copper World, and Peach-Elgin were not suitable alternatives to Rosemont. (https://www.rosemonteis.us/sites/default/files/references/westland-2013b.pdf see Appendix A)
Mark G. Stevens, Augusta vice president for exploration, stated in a series of August 2010 letters that the Broad Top deposit “was only a fraction (1.6%) of what the mineable Mineral Reserve” of the Rosemont deposit.
Stevens also stated that the Peach-Elgin deposits were only 4.3% of the Rosemont mineral reserve. Stevens said Copper World deposit “is most likely…a small deposit of low-grade mineralization…that is only a fraction” of the Rosemont mineral reserve.
Stevens’ assessment was based on previous exploration activities by mining companies including Anamax and ASARCO. He stated that Augusta did not do additional exploration because the company’s primary focus was developing the Rosemont deposit that had long been considered the primary copper deposit in the area.
IT IS INTERESTING THAT HUDBAY HAS SHIFTED THEIR PRIORITIES TO ADJACENT PROSPECTS WITH A VIEW TO DEVELOPING AT LEAST ONE OF THEM IN THE SHORT TERM . ALL THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON WITH LITTLE , IF ANY , OPPOSITION FROM THE PUBLIC . IT APPEARS THAT HUDBAY IS FULFILLING ITS OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE CURRENT MINING ACT . THE GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES HAVE NOT INTERFERED , IN ANY SIGNIFICANT WAY , WITH HUDBAY’S OVERALL DEVELOPMENT PLANS . AT LEAST ON PAPER , ALL IS WELL FOR HUDBAY .
WHEN AUGUSTA HAD TITLE TO THE ROSEMONT PROPERTY , THEY , AS PECULATORS , PROMOTED IT FAR BEYOND WHAT WAS FULLY PROVEN . NOTHING THEY SAID COULD BE TRUSTED . HUDBAY HAD REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE MINEABLE COPPER PROSPECT TO CONSIDER BUT KEPT IT UNDER WRAPS UNTIL THEY HAD COMPLETED THE PURCHASE OF ROSEMONT COPPER FROM AUGUST . HUDBAY APPEARS TO BE THE REAL WINNERS IN THIS CONTEST .
THE OUTSTANDING COURT CASE WILL CONTINUE AS HUDBAY DEVELOPS A NEW MINE FREE FROM ANY HINDERING CHALLENGES AND CONTROVERSIES . UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES , THE OPPOSITION TO HUDBAY’S CURRENT DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES WILL HAVE LITTLE , IF ANY , EFFECT . IT IS A CASE OF ” TOO LITTLE , TOO LATE ” .
STOP COPPER WORLD. Copper for profit vs, Water for life. Simple choice.
THERE ARE WAYS AND MEANS TO CURTAIL HUDBAY’S DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES . THESE INCLUDE :-
– THE GOVERNMENT CAN DECLARE COPPER AS A STRATEGIC METAL WHEREBY THE MINING AND EXPLOITATION OF COPPER DEPOSITS IS RESTRICTED BY LAW
– COPPER CONCENTRATES CAN BE DECLARED AS TOXIC MATERIAL REQUIRING SPECIAL HANDLING . THIS WOULD MEAN NO TRANSPORT VIA PUBLIC ROADS OR RAILWAYS
– GOVERNMENT REFUSAL TO GRANT EXPORT LICENCES
– IN VIEW OF INCREASING DROUGHT CONDITIONS , HUDBAY COULD BE REFUSED A WATER PERMIT
ALL OF THE ABOVE WOULD REQUIRE GOVERNMENT ACTION AT ALL LEVELS OF ADMINISTRATION . GO AFTER THE GOVERNMENT AND LET THEM DEAL DIRECTLY WITH HUDBAY . THE OPPOSTION MUST LOBBY GOVERNMENT AT ALL LEVELS IN ORDER TO GET RESULTS . HUDBAY WILL CONTINUE WITH THEIR ACTIVITIES UNTIL THEY ARE ORDERED TO STOP BY THE GOVERNMENT . THE OPPOSITION ALONE IS NOT ABLE TO STOP HUDBAY WHO APPEAR , AT THIS POINT , TO HAVE THE FULL SUPPORT OF ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT .
And what happens to this area when the mountian tops have been leveled and water has been depleated and poluted?