The Tujuh Bukit Copper Project is one of the world’s largest pre-production copper projects, located beneath the operating Tujuh Bukit Gold Mine. Merdeka owns a 100% interest in the project.
Since 2018, Merdeka has invested US$200 million on detailed feasibility work to advance the project, including a 1,890-metre exploration decline, resource definition drilling, geological modeling, technical studies, and a pre-feasibility study (PFS), completed in May 2023. The PFS confirms attractive project economics for developing a globally significant, long-life, underground mine adopting a phased approach. At peak production, Tujuh Bukit Copper Project will process 24Mtpa (million tonnes of ore per year) to produce over 110,000 tonnes of copper and 350,000 ounces of gold annually for more than 30 years.
As of March 2024, the latest Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) from this project reports an increase in the indicated mineral resources. The total mineral resource content of this project increased from 1,706 to 1,738 million tonnes, with an increase in indicated mineral resources from 442 to 755 million tonnes. As a result, the Tujuh Bukit Copper Project now contains 8.2 million tonnes of copper and 27.9 million ounces of gold, up from the initial 8.1 million tonnes of copper and 27.4 million ounces of gold.
Based on the latest MRE, the majority of the planned sublevel cave area now falls within the indicated resource, making further drilling unnecessary as the 2022 drilling program has achieved its goals. Therefore, drilling in 2024 will only be conducted on the surface to confirm additional heap leachable gold-silver oxide resources and identify open-pittable copper-gold sulfide resources to accelerate and enhance the early production profile of the Tujuh Bukit Copper Project.
Currently, Merdeka is focusing on project enhancement work, before commencing with a bankable feasibility study. The optimization work includes the potential for improved metallurgical recoveries, higher underground production throughput, and open-pit mining of additional copper ore.
