ICS Copper plots fresh course at Mokambo

VANCOUVER — Capital markets have not been kind to junior companies struggling to make the transition from exploration to mine development. ICS Copper Systems (ICX-V) has adopted a novel approach to reduce share dilution and dependency on markets while advancing its flagship Mokambo copper project in the Mufulira district of Zambia.

ICS Copper has purchased and plans to install an electrowinning plant at Mokambo by year-end. The plant will initially be used to process material from small local mines. The company will then use the cash flow to advance Mokambo and other assets in the Central African Copper Belt.

The portable plant being installed at Mokambo will use a proprietary metal recovery system that allows direct electrowinning of high-grade cathode or copper powder directly from low-grade copper-bearing leach solutions. Developed by Australian-based Electrometals Technologies, the EMEW system eliminates the solvent extraction (SX) process and has a simpler and more flexible flow sheet than traditional SX-EW plants. It produces no acid mist and requires no ventilation, and with no moving parts, is low maintenance.

ICS Copper president Graham Chisholm says the recovery system is much less expensive than an SX-EW plant and better suited for small to modest-sized deposits.

“It’s a good fit for us because we wanted to be able to generate cash flow without a huge capital cost investment.”

The company paid about $1.6 million for the modular 270-cell plant, which is designed to produce about 600 tonnes of finished copper and about 100 tonnes of cobalt carbonate annually.

The plant will be assembled on a pre-built concrete structure. An acid-proof membrane will be laid under the plant, as well as under the heap-leach areas, pregnant leach-solution pond and the raffinate pond. The company has already sourced a crusher, stainless steel belt filter for cobalt carbonate recovery, and an adequately sized diesel generator.

Chisholm says the Mufulira district has many copper deposits that are not large enough to become standalone mines, but which could be developed on a small scale with the benefit of a direct electrowinning plant.

“Third-party processing would be a temporary arrangement for us. The idea is to use the cash flow to develop and process our own resources.”

ICS Copper has a two-prong exploration approach to Mokambo — described as “one of the last known underdeveloped properties” in the Central African Copper Belt. The company has almost completed a phase of drilling to define oxide resources suitable for processing in the EMEW plant. A concurrent phase of drilling is directed at confirming historic resources in an underlying sulphide deposit that was first explored in 1929.

The Mokambo project was drilled and brought to feasibility in the 1970s by a joint venture be- tween the government of Zambia and Geomin, a company controlled by the former communist republic of Romania. The partners calculated an indicated resource of 12 million tonnes grading 1.72% sulphide copper down to 330 metres, plus another 12 million tonnes grading 1.47% sulphide copper in the inferred category. ICS Copper cautions that these historic estimates have not been independently verified and are not compliant with National Instrument (NI) 43-101 disclosure standards.

In 1974, the partners sank an exploratory shaft to further test the largest concentration of sulphide copper mineralization identified by their previous drilling. The plan was to sink the shaft to an ultimate depth of 430 metres and develop the deposit on four levels, however water-laden faults were encountered at the 120- metre level that flooded the mine. A new preliminary feasibility study was completed in 1976, but by this point a new co-owner disagreed with the economic data. This series of events, combined with a low copper price and escalating political tensions between Romania and Zambia, stalled the project until it was ultimately abandoned in 1977.

The sulphide confirmation drill program by ICS Copper consists of five holes designed to twin a representative percentage of the 35 historical diamond-drill holes. The first hole returned 11.74 metres grading 0.822% copper, confirming mineralization intersected by a hole drilled in 1930. Results are awaited for several other holes.

The company has 95% of the historical drill core available on-site, along with all historical assay data. Four historical sulphide holes were re-sampled and re-assayed and the results were compared with the original assays. Select highlights (true widths) include: 8.1 metres grading 0.98% copper; 18.9 metres averaging 1.82% copper; 47.2 metres of 0.93% copper; 43 metres of 0.84% copper; and 52.1 metres of 0.45% copper.

“They correlated with the historical results exactly,” Chisholm says, adding that both historical and current data are being digitized into a 3-D block model that will be used to guide ongoing work programs and develop the first NI 43-101-compliant resource for the deposit.

Results are still pending from a shallow drilling program focused on near-surface oxidized copper mineralization. This exploration target is believed to have potential for a resource ranging from 1-5 million tonnes, and grading between roughly 1.5% and 1.7% copper.

Transition zone material from the deposit has been shipped to Johannesburg for metallurgical testing to determine if this material could be added to the oxide mineralization and enhance the near-surface potential of the property.

ICS Copper holds an option to acquire 80% of the 4-sq.-km Mokambo property, situated on the northeastern side of the Mufulira Syncline. This portion of the syncline is less developed than the southwestern side, which hosts the famous Mufulira mine, a major copper producer since 1933.

The company has various projects in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, and is completing a due-diligence review of the Sebembere mine in Zambia. This mine, also explored by Geomin in the 1970s, hosts a historic resource (based on 10,700 metres of drilling) that is not NI 43-101 compliant.

Richard Molyneux, a former president and chief executive of De Beers Canada with extensive experience in Africa, recently joined the board of ICS Copper. –The author is a Vancouver-based freelance writer specializing in mining issues, and a former editor of The Northern Miner.