A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on Hudbay Minerals’ (TSX, NYSE: HBM) Mason porphyry copper project in Nevada outlines a large-scale open pit operation that could become the third-largest copper mine in the U.S., more than doubling the miner’s copper production. With a 27-year life, the project would involve 20 years of mining and seven years of stockpile processing at a 120,000 t/d flotation concentrator. A copper sulphide plant would produce copper and molybdenum concentrates with a flowsheet similar to the one at Hudbay’s Constancia mine in Peru. Over its first 10 years of full production, Mason would ... (full story)