Shayne Morrow, Alberni Valley Times, December 14, 2010

The proponents of the Raven Underground Coal Project have expanded their horizons by purchasing five mineral claims on the North Island.

The five sites are located near Campbell River, Tahsis, Sayward, Port Alice and Gold River, each containing copper deposits, along with secondary amounts of molybdenum and gold at three of the properties, which range between just over 1,000 hectares in Gold River to 7,500 in Port Alice.

"They're in the very early exploration stage," Compliance Energy CEO John Tapics said.

Three of the claims were purchased for a total of $200,000 and future royalty payments. Tapics said the majority of the deposits are a rock formation known as porphyry. For Compliance, it's a new direction from coal.

"Coal is a deposit in a sedimentary basin. These are igneous intrusions," he said.

The preliminary exploration has included geological mapping, soil and rock geochemistry, and airborne geophysical surveys. That's when you see a helicopter overhead, dangling a magnetometer on a long cable, Tapics said.

It's a technical stretch for the company, the CEO conceded.

"We have a number of properties where we've done very early stage exploration,' he said, adding that Raven Coal would fit in that category. "Outside of those, we've had one small producing coal mine in the Interior."

The company has come under fire for its proposal to ship millions of tons of coal to Asia via Port Alberni, most likely by truck. Tapics said shipments of copper ore would be of much lower volumes, hence lower traffic.

After plunging below $1 per pound in the late 1990s, pure copper now sells for well over $4 a pound. That makes it desired commodity, Tapics said, adding that the value per tonne is significantly higher than for coal.

Currently, the Myra Falls copper mine ships its concentrates through a small port near Campbell River.

"In most [porphyry-based copper] mines in B.C., the copper content of the ore is about 0.3 to 1% copper," he said.

To increase the value of the raw ore, a concentrator is installed on site to crush and grind the ore to about 25 to 28% copper, he explained.

Tapics said while the waste rock is mostly neutral, historically, old copper mines like Britannia, near Squamish have created serious environmental problems as the result of acid leachate created by water pouring over the waste rock piles. The historic site, now cleaned up, has become a major tourist attraction.

Tapics said his company will conduct a series of explorations, including test drilling and assays of rock samples, to determine which of the new sites is the most commercially viable, then move forward to develop it.

© Alberni Valley Times 2010

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