Thor Mining said Aussie mining giant OZ Minerals will provide funding for technical investigations into In Situ Recovery (ISR) technology at EnviroCopper's Kapunda copper-gold ISR project in South Australia.
OZ, which is fighting a takeover battle to ward off an approach from mining titan BHP, has committed A$2.5mln over 18 months to support ISR research at Kapunda.
This funding will not dilute Thor’s existing 30% stake in Envirocopper, a statement said.
ISR is seen as a more environmentally method of mining as it does not require wholesale digging but instead sees a solution pumped into the orebody that dissolves the metal that is subsequently retrieved when the liquid is pumped to the surface.
BHP used ISR alongside open pit and underground mining at its San Manuel mine, which produced approximately 3.25bn pounds of copper over 14 years.
Thor said the collaboration with OZ will start this quarter with the plan to use the IP it generates on other projects in South Australia and Australia, with any income shared.
Nicole Galloway Warland, Thor Mining’s CEO said: "We are very pleased to announce this collaboration between EnviroCopper and OZ Minerals, with OZL committing funds to continue the investigation at Kapunda Project into the potential economic extraction of copper via the low-footprint In-Situ Recovery mining technique.
“This is a validation of the previous work by ECL on In-Situ Recovery of copper at the Kapunda project, in cooperation with The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the University of Adelaide under a CRC-P grant (Commonwealth Research Centre Project).”