The San Matias Copper-Gold-Silver Project is an open pit mine, owned 100% by Cordoba Minerals Corp. in the Puerto Libertador municipality, Department of Córdoba in Colombia, South America.
The property includes 100% of Alacran Copper-Gold-Silver Deposit and satellite deposits: Montiel East, Montiel West, and Costa Azul.
A Technical Report and Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) of the project was prepared for Cordoba Minerals with effective date of 11 January 2022.
According to the report, the project has After-tax Net present Value (NPV) of $415.1m at 8%, After-tax Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 25.4%, and After-Tax payback period of 2.9 years.
Location and Site Details
The San Matias Copper-Gold-Silver Project is located 390km northwest of Bogotá and 160km north of Medellín in Colombia.
San Matias lies in the Western Cordillera’s northern foothills and the southern side of the Caribbean lowlands.
The Site can be reached by a 70km paved road, Caucasia to Puerto Libertador, and by a partially unsurfaced road of 21km length.
The property area has altitudes varying from 100m to 350m above mean sea level.
Ownership History of the San Matias Project
Dual Resources Inc conducted initial exploration on the property between 1987-1989.
In 2009, Sociedad Ordinaria de Minas Omni S.O.M. received a concession agreement.
The agreement was optioned to Ashmont Resources in 2010. Ashmont carried out various surveys on the property.
Cordoba Minerals acquired the property initially in 2015.
Cordoba signed phase 2 of the joint venture agreement with High Power Exploration for consolidating the project in 2016.
After announcement in 2017, Cordoba Minerals acquired 51% of High Power Exploration, in the project by its acquisition. Cordoba thereafter, optioned the Alacran deposit, completing the purchase in June 2020.
Geology, Mineralisation, and Mineral Reserves
The San Matias Copper Gold Silver Project is hosted by rocks belonging to the Upper Cretaceous Cañasgordas Group.
The project’s area is comprised of three primary lithological domains: intrusive rocks, volcanic rocks, and volcaniclastic rocks.
The intrusive rocks lie in the Alacran, Montiel East, and Costa Azul deposits.
The volcanic rocks lie in the Montiel deposit and volcaniclastic rocks in the Alacran, Alacran Norte, and Willian prospect areas.
The copper-gold-silver mineralisation of the Alacran deposit is hosted by west-dipping Cretaceous succession.
It consists of mafic volcanic rocks overlain by a calcareous volcaniclastic sequence.
The deposit’s cretaceous succession is capped by pre-to syn-mineral, sill-like diorite, and felsic sub-volcanic bodies.
The porphyry copper-gold-silver mineralisation of the Montiel East deposit is associated with a series of tonalite porphyry stocks and sills.
It hosts quartz-magnetite-chalcopyrite-bornite veins.
The Montiel West mineralisation is same as that of the Montiel East deposit.
The total mineral reserves of the property are 102.1 million tonnes at a grading of 0.41% of copper, 0.26g/t of gold, and 2.30g/t of silver at a $1.78 NSR cutoff for saprolite material and $8.85 NSR cutoff for transition and fresh material.
The total indicated mineral resources, at a grading of 0.64% copper equivalent, are 121.9Mt containing 518,019 tonnes and 1,142.2Mlb of copper at a grading of 0.42%, 1,092,557oz of gold at a grading of 0.28g/t, and 9,108,452oz of silver at a grading of 2.33g/t.
The total inferred mineral resources, at a grading of 0.39% copper equivalent, are 5.1Mt containing 10,428 tonnes and 22.9Mlb of copper at a grading of 0.204%, 34,731oz of gold at a grading of 0.206g/t, and 144,008oz of silver at a grading of 0.874g/t.
Mining and Mineral Processing
Conventional open pit mining will be used for the Alacran deposit of the project.
The method will include conventional drilling and blasting.
Blasting will be followed by a combination of a backhoe type excavator and front-end loader type excavator.
The broken rock will be loaded into haul trucks which will send the material to crusher, ROM stockpile, or waste dumps.
For mining, dozers, graders, and associated vehicles will be used as ancillary vehicles.
The processing will be done in a processing plant with a throughput of 22,000 metric tonnes per day (mtpd) at 92%per annum availability.
ROM feed will be received by a primary crusher facility from the adjacent OP.
The facility will have comminution circuit which will convert feed into cyclone overflow of 200 microns.
This overflow will be transferred to a four-stage flotation circuit for cleaning.
The circuit will consist of a roughing stage, primary, secondary, and tertiary cleaning stages.
The rougher float will be treated by a regrind stage to convert float to a P80 of 45µm before primary cleaning.
To produce a gold rich concentrate, two stages of gravity concentration will be used.
From a partial stream of ball mill hydro cyclone underflow, one unit will be fed.
The other smaller unit will be fed from the product of first cleaner.
Infrastructure of the project
The infrastructure includes mine and its processing plant supporting facilities, accommodation facilities, waste treatment and management facilities, and internal and external access roads.
A water management facility, freshwater supply and distribution facilities, and power supply and distribution facilities are other components of the infrastructure.
Freshwater will be supplied by a 2,700m3 fresh/fire water head tank.
The waste treatment facilities will be required for mill influent and mill effluent systems.
The power to mine is expected to be supplied by a new 35km long of 110kV power line for operations.
The power line will connect Cerro Matoso substation, owned and operated by Interconexión Eléctrica (ISA).
Contractors of the project
Nordmin Engineering, Intera Geoscience & Engineering Solutions, and Blue Coast Metallurgy & Research prepared the technical report of the San Matias Copper-Gold-Silver Project.
Stantec Consulting Chile and Knight Piésold were also involved in the preparation of the report.