There are more copper and gold deposits than earlier projected in the Tampakan project in South Cotabato of Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI), said Richard Laufmann of Indophil Resources NL a major investor in SMI.
The $5.9 billion Tampakan Gold-Copper Project is set for commercial operation in 2016.
Laufmann, the project manager of the Tampakan project, said that Xstrata Copper, the Canadian firm behind SMI, has informed that the total estimated mineral resources for the Tampakan deposit rose to 2.94 billion tons at 0.51 percent copper at a 0.2 percent copper cut-off grade, from 2.49 billion tons at 0.6 percent copper at a 0.3 copper cut-off grade.
This represents a tonnage increase of 18 percent over the previously reported October 2009 total resource estimates, said Laufmann whose Indophil owns 37.5 percent of the controlling equity at Sagittarius Mines.
Even though the Tampakan deposit has already been acknowledged as world-class, the new information confirms its ranking as one of the most significant undeveloped copper-gold deposits in the world, Laufmann said in reports fromGeneral Santos City where SMI is based.
The enhanced level of confidence provided in this upgraded resource estimate for Tampakan is encouraging. It is timely, and serves to restate the significance of this deposit to minerals development in the Philippines as the project partners work towards securing the range of approvals required to bring this important development to production, Laufmann said.
