Excelsior Mining Commences Construction of Johnson Camp Copper Mine, Arizona
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Excelsior Mining said construction has commenced at the Johnson Camp Mine (JCM), in southeast Arizona, with first copper production anticipated in H1 of 2025.
Following the decision by Nuton, a Rio Tinto venture to proceed to stage 2 of a process to restart the JCM mine using Nuton™ copper heap leaching technologies, Excelsior has completed the bulk of the planning and engineering and has mobilized crews to start construction.
M3 Engineering based in Tucson has been awarded the EPCM contract. Earthworks related to the construction of the new leach pad has commenced, including crushing of the over-liner material. Rango Inc. from Mesa was awarded the leach pad construction and overliner crushing contract and is ramping up efforts to achieve the Excelsior milestones.
To facilitate the start of these activities and stage 2, Nuton recently provided funding of $7.9 million.
“The commencement of leach pad construction marks a key milestone in Excelsior’s partnership with Nuton. The M3 and Rango team we have assembled is world class and committed to delivering a safe and timely project. The opportunity to build and operate Nuton’s first demonstration of their state-of-the-art copper leaching technology is a privilege Excelsior and our team is proud to deliver,” said Robert Winton, SVP Operations and general manager of JCM.
The Johnson Camp Mine is a past producing open pit, heap leach operation. The operation includes two open pits, a fully functioning SX-EW plant capable of producing 25 million pounds of cathode copper per year, a complete set of PLS and raffinate ponds, and full infrastructure (ancillary facilities, access, power, water, and communications).
Nuton is an innovative venture that aims to help grow Rio Tinto’s copper business. At the core of Nuton is a portfolio of proprietary copper leaching related technologies and capability - a product of almost 30 years of research and development. Nuton offers the potential to economically unlock copper from primary sulfide resources through leaching, achieving market-leading recovery rates and contributing to an increase in copper production at new and ongoing operations. One of the key differentiators of Nuton is the ambition to produce the world’s lowest footprint copper while having at least one positive impact at each of their deployment sites, across their five pillars: water, energy, land, materials, and society.
Excelsior Mining is a mineral exploration and production company that owns and operates the Gunnison Copper Project in Cochise County, Arizona. The project is a low cost, environmentally friendly in-situ recovery copper extraction project that is permitted to 125 million pounds per year of copper cathode production. Excelsior also owns the past producing Johnson Camp Mine, which with Nuton, a Rio Tinto Venture is in stage 2 of a process to restart the mine using Nuton technologies, with first copper expected to be produced in 2025. Excelsior additionally owns a portfolio of exploration projects, including the Peabody Sill and the Strong and Harris deposits.
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