| Copper,
Namibia
5.2% equity interest
In 2006, Weatherly acquired the assets of Ongopolo, a Namibian
copper producer, including a major undeveloped resource known
as Tschudi.
In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, work on the
project was suspended and, it was not until December 2009
that the company published its preliminary pit optimisation
study. Throughout 2011 and 2012 Weatherly made progress with
feasibility studies which started to show that the ore body,
including the deeper ore, was amenable to direct leaching
using sulphuric acid. Up until then, it was assumed that the
deeper ore would be treated using conventional flotation,
smelting and refining, which was a significant breakthrough
at the time.
By the end of 2012 the company was able to publish a BFS based
on an open pit mine using heap leach, solvent extraction and
electro-winning to produce high quality copper cathodes.
The BFS was completed in December 2012 and the financial results
were announced together with the funding from Orion Mine Finance
(then Red Kite). At the time, the BFS resulted in a Net Present
Value (at eight per cent discount rate) of US$105 million
based on an average Life of Mine and copper price of US$6,067
per tonne of copper.
Tschudi is an open pit that is expected to mine 190 million
tonnes of ore and waste over its 11 year mine life. The mine
has a proven and probable JORC ore reserve of 22.7 million
tonnes of ore at a grade of 0.95 per cent copper.
The ore will be processed using acid leaching, SX-EW technology.
This is a proven process that bypasses the conventional concentrating
and smelting steps to produce refined copper. Using this approach,
the company expects output to average 17,000 tonnes of copper
cathode annually.
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