The original Antler mine was a modest producer in the 1970s, but was forgotten until New World picked it up and spent three years defining a 13-year mine life that offers some of the highest-grade copper globally, with a development timed to feel into a widely expected shortage for the metal.
While Haynes says the miner keeps hitting better and better grades the deeper it drills at Antler and can see plenty of upside at depth, it is buying up all the known deposits in the nearby Javelin VMS district to improve the early economics.
It has just pinned down another past producer with a five-year option over the 630,000 tonne high-grade historical Pinafore copper and zinc resource that is contiguous with Javelin and could be used as feed for the planned processing plant to be built at Antler, just 75km away.
Of nine recorded holes drilled at Pinafore by Barrick, Placer Dome and Homestake Gold in the 1990s, seven appear to have intersected high-grade mineralisation, such as 4.5m at 3.7% copper and 10.4% zinc and 1.6m at 8.4% copper and 6.4% zinc.
No exploration has been undertaken at Pinafore since 1993. The mineralisation remains open in both directions along strike and at depth.
Does it improve at depth? No one knows, but New World intends to answer the question.
It already has multiple rigs in the field, and it won’t be left wondering.
“Because of the very high grades, the shallow nature of mineralisation and the fact that the deposit is located on private land, Pinafore now becomes one of our highest-priority immediate exploration targets amongst our multitude of other very high-priority exploration targets,” Haynes said.
The diamond rig that’s testing at the Discus prospect, 5km from Pinafore, will move to drill the new target within weeks.
Haynes said even if the worst happens and all that’s left at Pinafore is the historical resource, it’s still a very valuable addition to the wider Antler development given the upfront option payment of US$300,000 that can be funded from its recent A$20 million capital raising at 3.6c.
The vendor, Jacobsons Mining, will be paid up to US$850,000 to keep the option alive, split among annual payments.
New World can pay $2.5 million to trigger the option.
Together with the acquisition of the Red Cloud deposit last year, New World now controls two of the six past-producing VMS deposits in the Old Dick mining centre.
Haynes said the 11.4Mt at 4.1% copper equivalent Antler was viable in its own right, and “will make money in pretty much any copper price environment”.
Production costs are put at $3703/t. Spot prices are around $10,450/t.
The zinc endowment at Antler will pay for the processing costs.
Studies suggest Antler will generate around A$2 billion in free cash flow over the 13-year mine life.
Red Cloud, Pinafore and any other discoveries only add to the upside.
New World is looking at opportunities within a 100km radius of the proposed plant because, at this stage, there’s no point in drilling deeper at Antler.
“We know there’s mineralisation at depth, but there’s limited value looking deeper right now; [it] wouldn’t be in mine plan until year 10,” Haynes said.
Just 700m of strike has been drilled at Antler and 6km of untested soil anomalies heading toward the Copper World deposit outside New World’s leases, including the Bullhorn lookalike target, but the chances to get known deposits into the mix while permitting Antler make the economics look better.
A prefeasibility study for the Antler development is expected next month. Last year’s scoping study suggested a US$252 million development cost.
Antler is just south of Freeport-McMoRan’s Bagdad mine, the fifth-largest copper mine in the US.
