Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Brian Battison says copper prices have been steadily declining for the past five years.
“Copper was up to between $3.50 and $4.00 a pound not that long ago. Today $2.43, on Friday it was $2.32, in August it touched $2.25,” he said.
“Just to put that into some perspective the cost of production at Gibraltar had been as high as $2.50.”
Battison goes on to say that although places eventually shut down when economics don’t work, that is not the case at Gibraltar at the current moment.
“Taseko had invested $700 million dollars in the Gibraltar mine between 2006 and 2012-that was to help to ensure the mine continued to operate during periods of low copper prices like the one we’re in today so the good news is that the mine continues to operate and survive.”
Battison says they are hoping to see copper prices climb back up and adds that just today it was heading the right way jumping by 9 cents.