Name of the Project
Haib copper project.

Location
The project is partially located in the Namaqua-Natal province, in Namibia, called the Richtersveld geological subprovince.

Project Owner/s
Deep-South Resources.

Project Description
An updated preliminary economic assessment (PEA) has shown the Haib project to be amenable to bioheap leaching.

The PEA envisages a life-of-mine of 24 years and a throughput of 20-million tonnes a year, with copper recovery estimated at 80% and production estimated at 35 332 t/y of copper cathode and 51 081 t/y of copper sulphate.

The mine design is based on openpit methods. As the deposit basically comprises hard-rock material, the mining operations will involve the drill and blast of all excavated material, which will be segregated by cutoff grade.

The mining fleet will consist of appropriately sized hydraulic excavators and off-highway dump trucks, supported by standard opencut drilling and auxiliary equipment.

There will be no tailings. The spent heaps will be rehabilitated and left in place. Owing to environmental reasons and water resources, the tailings from the pH adjustment process and the iron removal process will be disposed onto the spent heaps using filtered dry-stacked tailings.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has pretax net present value, at a discount 7.5% rate, of $977-million and an internal rate of return 30.1%, with a payback of 4.22 years.

Capital Expenditure
Capital expenditure is estimated at $341-million.

Planned Start/End Date
Not stated.

Latest Developments
Deep-South Resources intends to undertake a feasibility study of the high-grade area of the deposit as the next phase of the project.

The programme will include infill drilling of the high-grade area to define the grade and estimate a measured resource, detailed mine design, measured resource definition, metallurgical and process technologies testwork, engineering design and an environmental-impact study.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
METS Engineering Group (updated PEA).

Contact Details for Project Information
Deep-South Resources (Namibia), tel +264 61 435 8267 or email info@deepsouthresources.com.