In 2024, Pathfinder Tonopah completed a PEA on the property that integrates historically mined supergene copper resources and hypogene molybdenum-focused resources into a single mine project plan. Subsequent metallurgical work proved a process flow sheet that uses floatation in conjunction with known leaching methods that yields copper cathode, silver dore and a molybdenum concentrate.
There is opportunity for the project to develop a facility that produces a higher-value molybdenum product on-site and that could serve as a regional toll-processing facility.
The updated Mineral Resources are predominantly on private property and are limited to previously approved or disturbed land. Pathfinder received a Determination of NEPA Adequacy for the project in February, 2026 and is now completing work with the Nevada state agencies.
The site also benefits from an estimated $400M worth of in-tact infrastructure utilized by previous mine operators, including roads, power access, water-rights, office and maintenance buildings, and other infrastructure.
Definitive Feasibility Study work and state permitting are underway now, with the project on track to be construction-ready in 2027 and producing metal in 2029. Located in a top-tier jurisdiction with existing infrastructure and primarily private land, the project is designed to help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign critical minerals while supporting the energy transition, advanced manufacturing, and national security.
Following results from tests completed with experts from three separate leading global firms, Pathfinder developed a metallurgical process flow sheet that recovers the best value from the copper and molybdenum utilizing both flotation and vat leaching.
In the supergene, a bulk sulfide concentrate will first be floated to recover molybdenum as a molybdenite concentrate. The remaining material will then be leached in a standard acid vat to extract soluble copper, which will be recovered as cathode. Residue from the copper leach will undergo cyanide leaching to recover silver.
The Complex was historically mined in the 1980’s and early 1990’s by Anaconda and later Cyprus for molybdenum, mainly within the hypogene porphyry system. In total, approximately 29 million tons of ore were processed to yield about 53 million pounds of molybdenum.
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, Equatorial Tonopah mined a portion of the supergene copper blanket, which was largely hosted in mineralized meta-sediments.
Over 14 million tons of supergene ore were mined and stacked on the heap leach pad, but the material was only partially processed and retains the majority of its copper content.
Notes:
The updated Mineral Resource shows that the bulk of the known in-situ resources, both hypogene molybdenum and supergene copper resources, remain unmined. Because portions of both the supergene and hypogene resources were mined historically, early phases of mining will require minimal development work, and we expect the strip ratio for the supergene copper resources over the first 10 years will be about 0.75:1.
The mine schedule and plan developed for the 2024 PEA considered a throughput of approximately 10 million tons of ore per year. Subsequent trade-off analyses led to increasing the throughput to approximately 20 million tons of ore per year. This improved project economics by
simultaneously mining supergene and hypogene material. The higher throughput would result in a mine life of 27 years to produce just over 1b pounds of copper and almost 700 million pounds of molybdenum.
The Liberty Mine Complex is centered on a porphyry Cu-Mo system in the western flanks of the San Antonio Mountains. The Hall Stock is a multi-phase, southeasterly plunging quartz monzonite porphyry (66-70 Ma) that hosts much of the Cu-Mo mineralization. The porphyry intrudes a metamorphosed package of Late Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic sediments that have been variably mineralized by the porphyry system. Tertiary dikes and volcanics cut the porphyry mineralization, and some of these later intrusive bodies appear to be associated with later, structurally controlled silver mineralization.
Basin and range faults cut portions of the system. One of the more prominent structures is the northerly striking Liberty Fault, which dips to the west at ~40° and truncates the porphyry system to the West, bringing mineralized basement rock up against basin-fill alluvium and colluvium. Uplift and weathering of the Cu-Mo porphyry system resulted in the development of a near-surface and near-horizontal supergene copper blanket.
Mineralization in the hypogene Cu-Mo porphyry is dominated by molybdenite (MoS2) and chalcopyrite (CuFeS2). The dominant copper mineral in the supergene blanket is chalcocite (Cu2S) with minor chalcopyrite.
