Strategic Minerals schedules re-start at Mountain of Light facility

Battery minerals company Strategic Minerals announced on Thursday that copper production was scheduled to start-up again at the Leigh Creek Copper Mine's ‘Mountain of Light’ processing facility in April, starting with the refurbishment and the trial reactivation of the existing processing plant and heap leach pads.

The AIM-traded firm said it had engaged experienced operator PPM Global, which had previously worked at the Mountain of Light processing plant, to refurbish the existing plant and to manage the trial restart of operations.

PPM Global had mobilised, and was currently on site, Strategic Minerals said.

It explained that assay results from the 250-hole shallow air core programme confirmed the presence of residual copper in the existing heap leach pads, with reactivation of the existing heap leach pads fully-covered under existing permits.

A feasibility study for the start of full scale production from the Paltridge North and Rosmann East deposits was said to be “well-advanced”, with expected completion of resource estimation and economic evaluation scheduled for late in the second quarter of early in the third quarter.

“The trial re-activation of the heap leach operations and the extraction of copper through the soon to be refurbished processing plant provides a significant step to full scale production which is scheduled for late 2019 [or] early 2020,” said Strategic Minerals managing director John Peters.

“While the restart of operations is expected to commence in April, shipment of our first copper is not expected for three months after commencement of operations.

“The engagement of PPM Global, an exceptionally experienced company who has previously operated the Mountain of Light plant, provides the company confidence in planned operations.”