Nifty Copper Complex

Location

The Nifty Copper Complex is located on the western edge of the Great Sandy Desert in the Paterson region of Western Australia, approximately 350 km southeast of Port Hedland.

History

Nifty was initially discovered by WMC in 1981 and commenced operation in 1993 as an open pit oxide copper mine with processing via heap leaching and solvent extraction-electrowinning (“SX/EW”) recovery to produce copper cathodes. From 2006, it transitioned to an underground sulphide mine with processing via standard flotation to produce a copper concentrate at rates in excess of 50,000 tonnes of contained copper per year. Between commencement of the oxide operation and 26 November 2019, when the mine was placed into care and maintenance (“C&M”), Nifty produced more than 700,000 tonnes of copper metal.

Cyprium acquired 100% of the Nifty Copper Complex in March 2021, as part of a larger transaction with Metals X (CYM ASX Announcement – Transformational Acquisition of Highly Attractive Copper Portfolio, 10 February 2021).

Infrastructure

The Nifty Copper Complex has substantial existing infrastructure, including:

Status

Cyprium is advancing a low-capital, multi-staged restart of operations at Nifty. Phase 1 (in execution) involves the re-leaching of existing heap leach pads to recover significant remaining copper alongside refurbishment of the existing SXEW plant to support initial copper cathode production.

Cyprium is systematically advancing technical work on subsequent stages focussed on recommencement of open pit mining at Nifty. This work is focussed on extraction of the residual oxides to allow expansion of cathode operations, as well as long-life mining of the large sulphide reserves immediately below. In parallel, this work is evaluating the refurbishment and restart of the existing Nifty concentrator to deliver copper concentrate production via processing of the open-pit sulphide reserves.