Modern Mining August 2024

Underground at Prieska Copper Zinc Mine.

sign off is imminent.” Since acquiring the Okiep project in February 2021, Orion Minerals has undertaken a Scoping Study which has confirmed the economic merits of developing a foundation-phase mining operation based on an initial six deposits. “Orion acquired about three quarters of the district which produced copper at an average grade of 1.9% cu. For many decades, it produced more than 20 000 t/y of copper from its plant facilities.” Importantly, Orion Minerals recently drilled one of the highest grades intersections on the Okiep project where it received 50 m at 5% copper. “There’s high-grade ore here that hasn’t been mined, and we’ll be proving it as we go.” The company is in the process of completing a bankable feasibility study on the Okiep project and, according to Smart, the project area is extremely attractive, consisting of 42 known mines within the district. “More than three quarters of those mines are on our properties. Exploration is ongoing, the BFS is almost complete.” Copper outlook A new copper cycle is emerging, underpinned by constrained copper supply owing to a lack of new mine development and countries investing heavily in clean energy. According to Smart, Sprott, which is a leader in precious metals and critical materials investments, is also “busy buying into physical copper’. “We are seeing that Sprott, one of the big investors funding mining equities and providers of debt financing, is now buying into physical metal-based stocks. Furthermore, with the world actively working towards ‘cleaning up its act’, companies are investing heavily into clean energy and green energy, with all of which rely heavily on the use of copper. I foresee demand for copper continuing to remain robust and more mines coming online to meet the projected demand,” concludes Smart. 

producers as it looks to ink renewable energy agreements for its projects. “We are in advanced discussions with a few renewable energy power producers, with one in particular, presenting terms which are 20% lower than the cost of Eskom power. Inclusion of renewable energy will mean that we will be producing certified green copper. That’s a huge opportunity, especially when speaking to off-takers and debt financiers where green and ESG, credibility is very important.” Further to this, the pumped water from the mine offers the company an option to process some of the water for mine use and extract the brine, which it will store for future use in fertiliser production. “We concluded a study on the viability of producing fertilizer from brine which indicated that such an initiative is not only technically and commercially viable but would add roughly $100 million to our coffers.” The ASX-listed entity is also in discussions with the local farmers’ cooperative as it looks to ink an agreement for its pumped water. Okiep project Meanwhile, in tandem with developing the Prieska project, the company is advancing the Okiep Copper Project (OCP) located in the Northern Cape, roughly 450km west of the company’s flagship Prieska project. The Okiep project, which produced nearly 2 million tons of copper historically and waspreviously owned by Newmont and Goldfields, offers Orion Minerals a significant opportunity to develop a second base metal production hub alongside its Prieska project. As it stands, the Okiep project is almost fully permitted, with the water-use licence and sign-off on the engineering design of the tailing’s facility, being the two outstanding components. “We started the application for the water-use licence process about three years ago and have been told that final

AUGUST 2024 | www.modernminingmagazine.co.za  MODERN MINING  19