Canadian miner Copper Mountain Mining has engaged investment bank Macquarie Capital to evaluate strategic opportunities regarding the Eva copper project, in Queensland, Australia, the company confirmed on Monday.
Copper Mountain was responding to media reports about a possible project sell-off. The miner stated that it regularly reviewed strategic opportunities and that there were no pending transactions with respect to Eva.
This is the second time in just over a month that Copper Mountain had to respond to speculation that it was making moves to divest the asset.
The Eva copper project is envisioned to be a conventional openpit operation, which is expected to cost A$836-million to develop, and the project is expected to add over 100-million pounds of copper production a year to the Copper Mountain portfolio.
Copper Mountain in December formally approved the development of Eva, contingent on completing detailed engineering to at least 80%. Total project expenditures for the first half of 2022 are estimated to be approximately A$40-million. Detailed engineering is planned for completion, to at least an 80% level, in the third quarter of 2022.