In return for 8 million shares valued at $22.2 million,
Taseko President Ronald Thiessen says the acquisition will give the company 100% control of the dormant Gibraltar copper mine, near Williams Lake, B.C., which it hopes to restart.
Last fall, GRTLP closed an $18.6-million financing to fund a portion of the reclamation bonding requirements. The proceeds were contributed to an environmental trust, which allowed Gibraltar to receive the balance of reclamation deposits ($16.7 million) held by the British Columbia government. Taseko advanced $4.6 million into the trust to provide more funding to restart the Gibraltar mine.
Gibraltar was closed late in 1998, owing to low metal prices. The open-pit mine had previously produced about 80 million lbs. copper and 700,000 lbs. molybdenum annually.
Taseko has since studied the potential for hydrometallurgical processing as a way of reducing the overall cost of producing copper.
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