It’s a time of excitement and Prosperity for Vancouver-based Taseko Mines Limited. In addition to spending some $300 million on new mining equipment and concentrator upgrades, Taseko has invested nearly $20 million on three major drill programs that have yielded significant increases to proven and probable reserves. “We had the foundation for a good long-term ore body, but there was only an eight to 10-year mine life,” explains Taseko president and CEO Russell Hallbauer. “We needed to increase reserves and build the asset out.” In April, Taseko announced that it had finalized a deal to sell 25% of the Gibraltar mine to a Japanese consortium led by Sojitz Corporation for $187 million. Taseko will use proceeds from the sale to develop its new Prosperity Mine – one of Canada’s largest undeveloped gold/copper deposits.

The excitement comes from a significant revamp of its flagship Gibraltar Copper-Molybdenum Mine in Williams Lake, B.C. Conducted over the past three years, the multi-phase expansion and modernization program is expected to increase its annual copper production capacity to 115 million pounds by 2011, lasting for the balance of the mine’s 25 years.

“We’ve worked with the consortium partners in the past,” says Hallbauer. “They are good business partners to have, and we’re looking forward to a long term relationship with them and realizing the significant growth opportunities that exist for Gibraltar and Taseko Mines.”

With proven and probable reserves of 3.6 billion pounds of recoverable copper and 7.7 million ounces of recoverable gold, taseko says the Prosperity property has the potential to “dramatically increase” shareholder value.

In January, Prosperity received its Environmental Assessment certificate from the B.C. Ministry of the Environment, allowing development of the project to proceed. The federal process continues to move forward and it’s expected that the panel reviewing the project will submit its findings in June.

Prosperity’s mine plan averages 300,000 ounces of gold and 130 million pounds of copper per year over its first five years of production (the mine life is estimated at 33 years).
Hallbauer says the company is eager to do more engineering work on Prosperity. “Everyone wants to put feet on the ground and shovels in the dirt to start building it as soon as possible.” Should Taseko get final approval this fall, engineering work will start immediately, with construction on the $800 million project getting underway in spring 2011.

The Prosperity mine is expected to be a boon for a region that has seen its forestry industry ravaged in recent years. “It’s going to mean a lot to the local communities,” says Hallbauer. “And on a provincial level, we’re talking about a mining operation that is going to contribute more to the B.C. economy than the fishing and film industries combined.”
Although copper and other metal prices have rebounded sharply in the last six months, the mining industry was hit hard by the global financial crisis.

Taseko, however, has emerged from the economic slump in good shape. “We’ve got a great management team at the company and we reacted quickly,” says Hallbauer. “We went through some tough times, but we’ve gone through tough times before. It tested everyone’s mettle.”