Canada Unearthed: A new copper miner and an explorer to catch the uranium train

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• Trigon Metals declares commercial production at reborn Kombat copper mine in Namibia
• Follows trend of growing African copper output backed by Canadian companies
• Uranium hopeful Cosa Resources Corp lists on TSX-V

Copper producers are coming out of the woodwork as supply returns to the sector in the years following the pandemic.

While Chile, the world’s largest producer of the red metal, is struggling to recover in the face of political discord, growing environmental awareness and the falling grades of its ageing mines, other jurisdictions are emerging as growth hubs.

Peru’s copper output is up strongly while southern Africa is rising in significance as a copper locale of import.

As covered in this column before, Barrick Gold has high aspirations for its Lumwana copper mine in Uganda.

Meanwhile the Kamoa-Kakula mine in the DRC is among the only serious growing tier-1 copper operations, led by legendary Canadian explorer Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines and China’s Zijin.

Then there is a potentially massive opportunity emerging in Botswana’s Kalahari copper belt.

Home to ASX-listed Sandfire Resources’ (ASX:SFR) Motheo mine, set to ramp up from an initial 35,000tpa of copper in concentrate to 55,000tpa after an approved plant expansion from 3.2Mtpa to 5.2Mtpa, the belt also boasts the Khoemacau mine.

That is drawing plenty of attention given it is up for sale right now through Canadian based owner Cuprous Capital, majority owned by US private equity mob Curpric Canyon Capital and minority owned by Resource Capital Fund VII LP.

Even the great Pierre Lassonde, chairman of royalty company Franco Nevada Corporation (TSX:FNV), has weighed in.

He thinks the Canadian Government should think long and hard about running a foreign review process for the mine, given copper’s status as a critical metal.

“The bottom line is a Canadian company controlling a critical mineral – a very valuable critical mineral asset,” he said, quoted by Canada’s Globe and Mail.

TSX companies roll into new old copper domain

While Africa has produced copper for a long time, dreams of a bull run aligned to the electric vehicle thematic has drawn investors and firms into the area in droves.

The outlook for the commodity is not rosy in the short term. Trading at around US$8000/t, copper tonnes held in inventory by the world’s biggest metals clearing house, the London Metals Exchange, have lifted 91% since December 2022 when inventories were near multi-decade lows.

A supply response from major producers, two years on from hitting all time highs of over US$10,700/t, will see more copper enter the market in 2024.

The International Copper Study Group thinks the surplus will be in the order of 467,000t in 2024, a forecast lifted sharply this month from 298,000t in April.

But producers are trying to move early to capture what they think will be persistent shortages from the latter half of the decade on, as older mines wrap up and green demand from electric vehicles, poles and wires, electrification and renewable energy sends copper demand sky high.

One of the newest producers in the Canadian market is another African focused miner, Trigon Metals (TSX-V:TM).

The bargain basement C$30 million producer says it hit commercial production at the Kombat mine in Namibia on October 11, meaning it operated at 70% of its production capacity for a 30-day stretch.

Kombat was originally in operation from 1962 to 2008, delivering 12.46Mt of core at a strong grade of 2.6% copper.

Located close to Walvis Bay port and the Tsumeb smelter, one of five commercial copper smelters in Africa, Trigon claims to have inherited US$150m of usable infrastructure at Kombat, including an 1100t a day mill (~400,000tpa) and 800m shaft.

Over the 30 days leading up to the declaration of commercial production, the mine delivered 650t of copper con at a capacity use rate of 77.8% and copper recoveries of 86%.

“This achievement is a testament to the relentless efforts and dedication of our team members,” Trigon VP of operations Fanie Muller said.

“I am incredibly proud of our staff for their hard work and commitment during the commissioning phase.

“We will take a moment to enjoy this significant milestone, and at the same time gear up for the next growth phases of the Kombat Mine which include the restart of the underground operations and the mill expansion project.”

Mining is currently taking place via open pit methods with Trigon planning to resume underground mining next year.

The open pit contains a probable reserve of 1.54Mt at 1.14% copper, 0.28% lead and 7.49ppm silver for 17,559t copper, 4301t lead and 11,508kg of silver.

But the real juice is in the underground. The combined open pit and underground resource contains 12.22Mt of indicated resources at 1.94% Cu, 0.7% Pb and 13.67g/t Ag, as well as inferred resources of 1.91Mt at 2.19% Cu, 1.79% Pb and 6.13g/t Ag.

Around 5.28Mt of the indicated resource is in the open pit at a grade of 1%. The underground ore grades a far more attractive 2.66% Cu, though it should be noted prices used for copper, lead and silver cut-offs of US$9100/t, US$2500/t and US$27/oz in August 2021 are far higher than today’s prices.

The mine is expected to ramp up from 4Mlbspa (around 1800t) to 22Mlbpa (~10,000t) between 2024 and 2026.

A new uranium name

Meanwhile yet another uranium name has joined the boards of the world’s most populated mining exchange.

Vancouver based Cosa Resources Corp (TSX-V:COSA) began trading on the small cap TSX Venture Exchange on October 18, adding to listings in the US over the counter market and Frankfurt.

The company is searching for yellowcake in northern Saskatchewan, controlling around 160,000 hectares of exploration ground across the Athabasca Basin.

The Athabasca, home to Cameco’s McArthur River and Cigar Lake mines, is unique for its grades. While most uranium is mined from deposits tabled in the parts per million, mines like McArthur River grade as high as around 15%.

The company is led by Keith Bodnarchuk, previously the head of strategy and development for fellow uranium stock IsoEnergy and a project geologist at Denison Mines.

VP of exploration Andy Carmichael was credited with the AME 2022 Colin Spence Award for the discovery of Hurricane with IsoEnergy, the world’s highest grade indicated uranium resource.

That is, 48.6Mlb of uranium oxide at an astonishing 34.5% U3O8.

Cosa’s assets include the Castor and Charcoal projects along the Cigar-Midwest and Collins Bay Trends to the northeast of Hurricane and Cameco’s shuttered Rabbit Lake mine.

Further to the south are the Orion, Ursa and Astro projects immediately west of Cigar Lake and McArthur River on the Larocque Trend and Cable Bay Shear Zone and Orbit, due south of the Key Lake mill.

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