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per tonne milled. Should such a level be maintained, at a mine here, it would make Harper Creek a lowest-quartile-cost copper producer. On-site operating costs per pound of copper produced are projected at US$0.95 with the first five years of output costing an even-lower $0.80 per pound. Of course, looking at the people behind Yellowhead, it should come as no surprise the company is driven to pull profits out of the ground. T. Gregory Hawkins, P .Geo. MSc. and interim CEO, has been involved in the mining industry since 1969 and has been variously responsible for the identification and or delineation of 10 minerals deposits in Canada. Former CEO and Director, Ian Smith, oversaw the majority of the assessment work on Harper Creek and has a track record of creating projects that work, particularly as former CEO of bcMetals Corp, which sold the Red Chris copper-gold project to Imperial Metals in 2007. With a feasibility study in hand, Yellowhead is not slowing down on Harper Creek. The company is now knee-deep in the preparation of an environmental assessment application to the British Columbia government, moving the project even closer to mine building. The environmental application should be submitted any day now, with permits then possible in late 2013. Yellowhead is at the same time undertaking detailed engineering studies for mine planning. The company has purchased a former lumber-loading facility 25 km from the planned mill site for Harper Creek, giving the project a built-in option for rail transport of copper concentrates. In the junior mining business, the more you advance a deposit, the more interested big miners will be. This past November, Taseko Mines invested $5 million in Yellowhead through a private placement. Taseko now owns 16.8% of the company – a major vote of confidence in the way management has advanced Harper Creek. Worldwide, numerous other projects face the same skepticism over grade that Yellowhead is overcoming; Harper Creek may prove a template for a new era of mining development. After all, the world needs copper – and high-grade deposits are getting harder to find. n february 2013 "Sintana is excited to joint venture with ExxonMobil on VMM-37 in Colombia - that includes P50 resource estimates of 700 Million BOE." Doug Manner, CEO Exploring A Better Way sintanaenergy.com Sintana-RW-thirdpg Ad-SE 12-12.indd 1 www.resourceworld.com 33 12/7/12 11:21 AM