Finders Resources has advised of a wall failure within the Kali Kuning open pit at the Wetar Copper Project in Indonesia.

Image source: ©Finders Resources. Aerial view of the Kali Kuning Leach Pads looking towards the 25,000 tpa copper cathode SX-EW plant

According to the company report, approximately 300,000 billion cubic metres (bcm) of waste rock from the north-eastern highwall was displaced into the Kali Kuning pit over the morning of Monday, 1 October 2018.

Mining operations were suspended for approximately 12 hours to allow for a geotechnical assessment. The footprint of the slip has temporarily isolated a significant portion of the remaining Kali Kuning ore. Remediation options are being assessed and it is likely that the removal of the waste will impact short term mine production.

Finders Resources has reported that SXEW operations are not expected to be interrupted as a result of the wall failure, with sufficient copper inventory in the heap pads and solution to maintain current production rates for the immediate future being devised.

Finders is the operator of the Wetar Copper Project (74.1 per cent economic interest) located on Wetar Island in Maluku Barat Daya, Indonesia. The Wetar Copper Project comprises the development, open pit mining and processing of the high-grade sulphide deposits at Kali Kuning and Lerokis located within 3 kilometres of the coast on Wetar Island. Finders currently operates a 25,000 tonne per annum (“tpa”) copper cathode solvent extraction electro winning (“SX-EW”) plant, commissioned in May 2016, and a 3,000 tpa SX-EW plant for nameplate production capacity of 28,000 tpa copper cathode.

Finders Resources’ majority shareholder is Indonesian copper consortium, Eastern Field Developments, which is comprised of three companies: Provident, Saratoga and Merdeka.

The company was formed last year for the purpose of taking over Finders Resources, and managed to gain over 50 per cent of its shares in March 2018.

Source: findersresources.com