Economic assessment of the Northern Copper Belt deposits – a future resource base of copper and silver ores in SW Poland

Abstract

Seven un de vel oped sed i ment-hosted stratiform Cu-Ag de pos its con sti tute a fu ture re source base of cop per and sil ver ores in the Fore-Sudetic Monocline in SW Po land. Among these, four have only re cently been dis cov ered and doc u mented: Nowa Sól, Sulmierzyce North, Mozów (form ing a part of the North ern Cop per Belt) and ¯ary. The three re main ing de pos its -Bytom Odrzañski, G³ogów and Retków -sur round the cur rently mined New Cop per Dis trict to the north-west, north and north-east. Pol ish Cu-Ag de pos its are polymetallic: cop per, sil ver, lead, nickel as well as sub or di nate rhe nium and gold are cur rently ex tracted. How ever, they show high re port ing of other by-prod uct met als, such as co balt, mo lyb de num, va na dium, zinc and rare earth el e ments. Unit ore val ues ex pressed in US dol lars per met ric ton of ore have been cal cu lated for de pos its in the North ern Cop per Belt to com pare them with other un de vel oped and mined Pol ish sed i ment-hosted stratiform Cu-Ag de pos its. The cal cu lated unit ore val ues for the de pos its stud ied are pri mar ily in flu enced by cop per, with a sig nif i cant con tri bu tion (up to 29%) from sil ver. In terms of base met als other than cop per, their con tri bu tion to the unit ore val ues is here rel a tively low, ac count ing for only 1-11% of the to tal value. The pro por tions of sil ver and lead in the unit ore value show a trend: they tend to be lower in the vicin ity of ox i dized fields and grad u ally in crease with dis tance from these ox i dized ar eas. The share of nickel in the unit ore value, on the other hand, is not in flu enced by dis tance from the ox i dized fields. In stead, it is de pend ent on fac tors such as the thick ness and or ganic con tent of the shale ore, which af fect the ac cu mu la tion of non-fer rous, re dox-sen si tive by-prod uct met als, in clud ing nickel. Fur ther more, we pro vide a com par a tive anal y sis of the to tal unit ore value among Pol ish sed iment-hosted stratiform Cu-Ag de pos its. Par tic u lar em pha sis is placed on the de pos its that con sti tute the fu ture re source base of cop per and sil ver ores in south west Po land. A mar ket per spec tive is drawn to high light the in flu ence of metal price fluc tu a tions on the unit ore val ues of the var i ous de pos its. By ex am in ing the dy namic na ture of metal prices, the study of fers in sights into how changes in mar ket con di tions can im pact the eco nomic vi a bil ity of de pos its lo cated in dif fer ent parts of the Fore-Sudetic Monocline. The de pos its that con sti tute the fu ture re source base of cop per and sil ver in Po land show re markably high cop per and sil ver grades, re sult ing in sig nif i cantly higher unit ore val ues com pared to other world-class de pos its of dif fer ent types such as por phyry, epi ther mal, and IOCG (iron ox ide cop per gold) de pos its.