Copper Fox Metals has agreed to buy the Miami, Arizona building it currently uses as an office and core storage for US$290,000. The deal is expected to close this month, the company said in a September 2 release.
The facility covers about 0.86 acres and includes an office, a core preparation room and an outbuilding. As a transaction it is small. It comes as the company finalises both an underground development plan for its Van Dyke copper project in Gila County and an updated economic study of that project — a permanent base near the mine site is the kind of infrastructure that precedes ground being broken.
Van Dyke uses in-situ copper recovery: solution is injected underground to dissolve the metal, and the resulting liquid is pumped to surface for processing, without blasting or open-pit excavation. The updated preliminary economic assessment — an early study that estimates whether a project is worth developing — has progressed far enough that the company has now defined a complete excavation plan.
That plan calls for roughly 4,900 metres of tunnelling in two phases. Phase one covers the first six years and targets the higher-grade sections of the deposit first, which the company says is designed to generate copper production earlier and accelerate recovery of capital costs. Phase two, covering years seven through seventeen, moves into lower-grade material.
Both phases will use a roadheader — a mechanical cutting machine — rather than conventional drill-and-blast methods. The company says this avoids the gases that explosives produce and is expected to maintain the structural integrity of the rock above the workings.
A groundwater flow model for the project has been completed and calibrated, a step required before the company can model how water moves through the deposit and the surrounding geology.
Shares closed 16.64% higher at $0.5670 on dollar volume of about $769,000.
The economic assessment has not been published. The release does not say when it will be.