Metallurgy & Mineral Processing

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Costa Fuego
Metallurgy & Mineral Processing

The Costa Fuego project includes a combination of sulphide and oxide material processing producing a copper concentrate and copper cathode.

The proposed processing facilities, located at Productora, are suitable for all Costa Fuego Project deposits. The sulphide concentrator is the centrepiece of the facility and is designed to process nominally 20.7 Mtpa of ore while averaging 21.7 Mtpa across the project life. Concentrator capacity will vary by deposit based on comminution properties.

Processing also considers a 4 Mtpa of oxide leach facility, to be processed via a crushing-agglomeration-heap leach circuit coupled with an SX-EW plant producing up to 12 ktpa of copper cathode. Sulphide material that is not economic for flotation is assessed for stockpiling in the mid-term via a low-grade sulphide dump leach designed for 3.6 Mtpa.

The Project has a processing throughput ramp-up time of one year for both the sulphide concentrator and oxide heap leach.

COSTA FUEGO COPPER PRODUCTION

Annual metal production across the three processing streams averages 95 kt Cu, 48 koz Au, 158 koz Ag and 4.4 Mlb Mo for the primary production period (first 14 years). LOM annual metal production across the 20-year processing life averages 74 kt Cu, 37 koz Au, 128 koz Ag and 3.4 Mlb Mo.

COSTA FUEGO COPPER PRODUCTION

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METALLURGICAL TESTWORK

Testwork was conducted on sulphide mineralised material, copper oxide and transitional mineralised material and low-grade sulphide, with the aim of providing design criteria for the sulphide concentrator and leaching process plants, an indication of crushing-grinding circuit throughput, and metallurgical recoveries for each mining area.

The metallurgical testwork confirmed the sulphide material is suitable to be processed by conventional crushing, grinding and flotation technologies to recover copper, gold, and silver into the copper concentrate, and molybdenum into a separate concentrate.

Importantly, the copper concentrate produced from locked-cycle tests completed for the Costa Fuego Project indicated very low arsenic in the fresh water washed concentrate. Negligible deleterious elements were reported in concentrate testwork, and it would be considered a high specification clean concentrate

FLOATION SAMPLING AND PROCESS PLANT DESIGN

A concentrator treating sulphide ore and producing separate copper concentrate (containing gold and silver credits) and molybdenum concentrate is proposed at Costa Fuego.

FLOATION SAMPLING AND PROCESS PLANT DESIGN

flowsheet

LEACHING

Heap and dump leach facilities treating oxide and low grade sulphide ore respectively, produce a copper cathode via an SX-EW process.

LEACHING

COMMON QUESTIONS

What is the Costa Fuego project?

Read more about Costa Fuego on our project page or in the PFS Infosheet below
READ THE INFOSHEET
What minerals are at Costa Fuego?

The main economic mineral is chalcopyrite, a sulphide containing copper.

The deposit contains other economic elements such as gold, silver and molybdenum which are included within the "copper equivalent" calculation used to describe the value of the deposit.