Orvana Minerals’ subsidiary Orvana Resources has submitted a mine permit application for the Copperwood copper project to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).

The overall environmental permit is one of 13 permits that are required to operate a mine in Michigan.

Orvana will submit the other permits including a wetlands fill permit, wastewater discharge permit and air discharge permit in the coming months.

The Copperwood project, located in Gogebic County, is a stratiform copper deposit hosted by the shales and siltstones of the lowermost Nonesuch Formation along the shallow-dipping southern limb of the westward-plunging Western Syncline.

The firm has planned to mine the deposit with underground room-and-pillar methods and process the ore by conventional flotation technology.