The rise in the copper price will see Minera Cobre, a private copper exploration junior in Colombia founded by the same team who established Red Eagle Mining (CN:R), seek a fund raising to undertake its first drilling programme and possibly hasten its IPO.
San Matias drill core. Minera Cobre wants to raise US$10 million to drill its copper porphyry targets
Minera Cobre has pieced together a 200km-long land package covering much of the northern extension of Colombia’s Western Cordillera and the Mandé Batholith, which includes areas where government and United Nations-sponsored exploration in the 1970s and 1980s discovered several porphyry copper targets.
The belt also hosts Cordoba Minerals’ (CN:CDB) San Matias project at its northern extremity, Atico Mining’s (CN:ATY) El Roble VMS deposit, and Rugby Mining’s (CN:RUG) Cobrasco and Comita projects.
Minera Cobre’s timing in piecing together the land package was contrarian and opportune. It picked up exploration concessions from Glencore (LN:GLEN) and AngloGold Ashanti (SJ:ANG) at a time when copper producers were licking their wounds as the bear market bit the red metal price. “We couldn’t do what we did today. There would be too many people competing for it,” CEO Jeff Toohey told Mining Journal.
And with Minera looking to raise US$10 million, of which some $5 million will be for drilling on its main target, it has just hired a new vice president of exploration. The company previously raised $8 million that it has used to fund the acquisitions and obtain drill permits. Previously, Glencore invested over $40 million on exploration which was used to undertake airborne geophysics over its entire land package and follow-up surface sampling to define drill targets.
“We have a number of drill-ready targets and a number of investors interested in the financing,” Toohey said.
Credit: Paul Harris @ Mining Journal.
