Here is the article I think you are referring to that appeared in the Prince George Citizen today. Regards Cu63

April 20, 2012

Mark NIELSEN
Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

Things just keep getting better and better for the fledgling Red Chris copper and gold mine.

Imperial Metals will continue with the original owner's vision of developing a 30,000 tons per day open pit mine operation at the site, about 80 km south of Dease Lake, but since acquiring the project in 2007, the company has conducted additional exploration with positive results.

"We found that the true deposit is far larger than it was originally conceived to be," Imperial Metals exploration manager Steve Robertson said Wednesday night during a presentation at a Northern Interior Mining Group networking event.

The first drill in Imperial's exploration program was a "home run."

"We drilled a kilometre of one per cent copper and one and a quarter grams of gold," Robertson said. "There are probably only a half dozen places on the face of the earth where you can drill a hole like that."

Subsequent drills indicate about 16 billion pounds (7.3 billion kilograms) of copper and 24 million ounces (680 million grams) of gold, enough to rank Red Chris as the 13th largest copper and gold deposit in the world, according to a CIBC World Markets survey.

Based on the numbers from when B.C. Mining Co. owned the site, the mine's lifetime is expected to be 28 years. The subsequent drilling showed a 103 per cent increase in the indicated resource tonnage.

The mine will begin operation once the Northwest Transmission Line along Highway 37 is completed in December 2013 with the mine's concentrate shipped to smelters in Asia via Stewart.

At the current prices for copper and gold, Robertson said it will take less than two years to pay back the $443.6 million capital cost, while the base case for the project calls for a four-and-a-half-year payback.

"That was one of the reasons we found this project so attractive to pursue," Robertson said. "There are not a lot of projects of this magnitude out there that you can build for $440 million."

Robertson did caution there may be overruns given the cost pressures new mines are facing and later added Imperial's Mount Polley copper and gold mine near Williams Lake continues to pay Imperial's bills.

Things are not so upbeat for TTM Resources Inc. and its effort to start up the $1-billion Chu molybdenum project, 75 kilometres southest of Endako.

"To be honest, we're behind schedule," TTM's vice president of exploration Wes Raven said during a separate presentation. "Our project is price sensitive and molybdenum has not recovered like the other metals have since 2008."

However, working through the permitting process remains ongoing.

"You've just got to wait for the right time and hopefully we hit a peak at a high metal price when things get going," Raven said. "That's what you want so you can pay your capital costs back in a hurry."

An onsite mill will produce two semi truck loads of 50-per-cent molybdenum concentrate per day, he said.