I just watched the BNN clip with Hudbay President and CEO David Garofalo and was reviewing Hudbay's 2011 budget for exploration, both of which indicate that Hudbay is going to be very aggressive in 2011.
The most significant number to Halo shareholers is the exploration budget which is pegged at $59,000,000. That's up significantly from last year's budget of $42,000,000, an almost 50% increase. With the commodities market as hot as it is, I imagine Hudbay wants to take full advantage of the current climate.
I've underlined some of the parts which I believe to be significant. For the full press release:
https://investor.shareholder.com/hbm/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=536285
HudBay Minerals Announces 2011 Production Guidance and Capital and Exploration Budgets Extension of Gold Zone at Lalor and New Copper Mineralization at Reed Lake
Highlights
- Capital investment of approximately $289 million, including $184 million in growth initiatives
- Investment in exploration of approximately $59 million near existing mines and projects and grassroots efforts in the Flin Flon Greenstone Belt, Chile and the Yukon
- New drill hole demonstrates extension of gold mineralization at Lalor, intersecting 8 meters of 9.28 g/t gold 200 meters down plunge of gold zone 25
- The first step out exploration hole at the Reed Lake deposit intersected 10.09 meters assaying 2.39% copper approximately 210 meters from the known deposit
- HudBay geologists to conduct an exploration update, which will be webcast live on December 15, 2010 at 12 p.m. ET on HudBay's website at www.hudbayminerals.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 12/13/10 -- HudBay Minerals Inc. ("HudBay", the "company") (TSX: HBM)(NYSE: HBM) today released its production guidance as well as its exploration and capital expenditure budgets for 2011.
"Our exploration budget of approximately $59 million in 2011 demonstrates management's confidence in our strong exploration team and the potential of our exploration opportunities," saidDavid Garofalo, HudBay's president and chief executive officer. "We will also be investing $289 million in capital expenditures, including approximately $163 million at Lalor, which we are aggressively developing toward production. We are also looking forward to another solid year of production from our operating mines in 2011."
Strong Production from Existing Mines
Contained metal production in concentrate in 2011 is expected to be similar to 2010 because reduced production at Trout Lake is expected to be offset by a full year of production at Chisel North and higher production and copper grades at the 777 mine.