Ivanhoe Electric (TSX: IE; NYSE-AM: IE) now has full ownership of the mineral rights at its Santa Cruz copper project in Arizona after making a $10-million payment.
The mineral rights option was part of the company’s US$116-million purchase last May of nearly 6,000 acres of surface title and associated water rights at the project.
“Completing our option agreement and securing 100% ownership of the mineral rights at our Santa Cruz copper project in Arizona is an important milestone for our company,” Taylor Melvin, Ivanhoe Electric’s CEO said in a release.
“We have now completed the consolidation of surface and mineral rights ownership at one of the largest and highest grade undeveloped copper resources in the United States that is located entirely on private land.”
Ivanhoe’s Santa Cruz project contains 26.7 million tonnes of indicated resources grading 1.24% total copper (2.8 million tonnes of contained copper) and 149 million tonnes of inferred resources grading 1.24% total copper (1.8 million tonnes of contained copper).
An initial assessment of the project released last year, focusing only on a small surface footprint for an underground copper mine, estimated Santa Cruz could produce a total of 1.6 million tonnes of copper over a 20-year mine life at cash costs of US$1.36 per lb. of copper.
The project is also designed to minimize surface land disruption. The assessment base case assumes that 70% of the electric power required for the project will be generated by onsite renewable energy infrastructure to minimize carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.
Ivanhoe Electric has a market cap of US$859.6 million.
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