Hudbay Signs Flin Flon Option With Marubeni

During mid-March, Hudbay Minerals Inc. signed an option agreement with Marubeni Corp., which would allow Marubeni’s Canadian subsidiary an option to acquire a 20% interest in three projects located within trucking distance of Hudbay’s processing facilities in Flin Flon, Manitoba. To exercise the option, amongst other things, Marubeni will fund at least C$12 million ($8.8 million) in exploration expenditures over five years with Hudbay acting as operator and carrying out the exploration activities. Upon successful completion of Marubeni’s earn-in obligations, a joint-venture will be formed to hold the selected projects with Hudbay, acting as operator, holding an 80% interest and Marubeni holding the remaining 20% interest.

“This arrangement allows us to partner with Marubeni and leverage our operational and exploration expertise to test our large Flin Flon land package to potentially bring another mine into production and use Hudbay’s idle processing infrastructure,” said Peter Kukielski, president and CEO, Hudbay Minerals.”

The Agreement focuses on three projects in the Flin Flon region, Cuprus-White Lake, Westarm and North Star, which were selected by Marubeni following a period of detailed due diligence. All three properties hold past-producing mines that generated meaningful production with attractive grades of both base metals and precious metals. All are within 20 km of Hudbay’s Flin Flon milling complex.

“The signing of an option agreement with Hudbay gives us access to the Flin Flon Greenstone Belt, one of the most prospective base metal VMS camps in the world,” said Masafumi Ichigetsu, general manager of Marubeni’s copper mining department. “This is our first step to a long-lasting and prosperous relationship with Hudbay that will undoubtedly yield exceptional results.”

The Cuprus-White Lake project consists of 3,384 hectares and 94 claims that include the Cuprus mine, which produced 463,000 metric tons (mt) at grades of 3.25% copper and 1.3 grams per mt (g/ mt) gold in the early 1950s and the White Lake mine, which produced 850,000 mt at grades of 1.98% copper and 0.72 g/mt gold over 10 years in the 1970s and 1980s. The Westarm project has three primary claims covering 727 hectares. The region saw production of over 1.4 million mt from the 1970s to 1990s, with average grades of 3.2% copper and 1.58 g/mt gold.

The North Star area includes 22 claims consisting of 406 hectares. The region had two historical producing mines, the North Star mine with production of more than 242,000 mt with average grades of 6.11% copper and 0.34 g/mt gold, and the Don Jon mine with production of 79,000 mt at 3.09% copper and 0.96 g/mt gold. Both were in operation in the 1950s, with the region having seen limited modern exploration techniques. The exploration work will begin in the summer of 2024 with various geochemical and mapping programs.

As featured in Womp 2024 Vol 04 - www.womp-int.com