Apart from restoring a pilot gold operation of Philex at Sibutad, Freeport McMoRan—more well known for its copper operations—is reportedly also interested in a copper resource underneath gold at Sibutad, it was reported. “Although they’re looking for gold, they’re also for copper. There is believed to be copper under gold at Sibutad. It should be between 200 to 500 million metric tons,” said an industry official.

Sibutad previously was the site of a pilot-scale heap leaching gold operation starting in 1995 but shutdown in 1999. It is estimated to have a remaining resource of 19 million mt at 1.12 g/mt gold. Sibutad is believed to have high exploration potential with promising presence of porphyry copper in an epithermal vein. Assays at a copper target in Magsaysay prospect reached as much as 19.1% copper, 3.8% zinc, 2.6 g/mt silver, and 0.3 g/mt gold, according to Philex.