Name: Thompson Creek mine.

Location: The Thompson Creek mine is situated 56 km south-west of the town of Challis, in Idaho, the US.

Controlling company: Thompson Creek Metals Company (100%).

Brief history: The Thompson Creek deposit was discovered in 1968 by Cyprus Minerals Corporation. Construction started in 1981 and full production started in 1983 and continued until 1992. In 1993, Thompson Creek purchased the mine. Operations resumed in 1994.

Brief description: Thompson Creek mine has a ten-year life-of-mine. The site contains a mill, an openpit, support buildings, maintenance facilities, offices, and an assay laboratory.

Products: Molybdenum.

Mining method: Openpit.

Major infrastructure and equipment: The mine uses conventional openpit mining methods and large electric-powered shovels that load ore onto 200-t trucks to be hauled to an on-site mill (concentrator). A molybdenous disulphidic concentrate is extracted from the ore through a series of crushing, grinding and flotation operations. The ore is crushed and then ground in a closed circuit semiautogenous grinding mill-ball plant. The rougher concentrate is removed and sent for regrinding. The material is then sent through column cleaner flotation cells and screened. The screen undersize is leached to remove lead, copper, and uranium. The molybdenite ore is processed to produce molybdenous disulphide concentrate, which is shipped to the Langeloth metallurgical facility for further processing.

Geology: The Thompson Creek porphyritic molybdenous deposit lies near the eastern margin of the Idaho batholith, which intrudes into a deformed sequence of paleozoic sedimentary rocks. Part of the deposit is overlain by Eocene challis volcanic rock. The deposit consists of molybdenous-quartz vein stockworks associated with the potassic alteration of quartziferous monzonite.
Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at December 31, 2012, were 134.9-million tons, with a molybdenum grading of 0.075%.

Resources: Total measured and indicated resources as at December 31, 2012, were 54.9-million tons, with a molybdenum grading of 0.048%.

Prospects: The Thompson Creek mine is producing at high volume and low cost. The cessation of waste-stripping activity at the mine, associated with the next phase of production, referred to as Phase 8, has contributed to these low costs.

Thompson expects this revision to the mine plan to defer about $100-million in operating costs and between $8-million and $9-million in capital expenditures until the end of 2014. Mining operations and production are expected to continue as planned in 2014 in the current Phase 7 of the mine.

The company also expects to preserve the assets at Thompson Creek mine to enable it to restart waste stripping of Phase 8 of the mine plan when market conditions warrant. If waste stripping has not restarted by 2015, Thompson expects that the mine will be placed on care and maintenance.

Contact person: Director of investor relations and corporate responsibility, Pamela Solly.

Contact details:
Thompson Creek Metals
Tel +1 303 7623526
Email psolly@tcrk.com
http://www.thompsoncreekmetals.com