Investor Perception
Doré Copper Mining is advancing high-grade tasks within the Chibougamau area by means of a hub-and-spoke technique centered round its flagship high-grade copper Nook Bay deposit, leveraging its distinctive benefit of proudly owning the one mill within the space, whereas benefiting from supportive communities and present infrastructures.
Overview
Doré Copper Mining (TSXV:DCMC,OTCQB:DRCMF,FRA:DCM) is a copper-gold exploration and improvement firm, positioning itself as a near-term producer within the prolific Chibougamau area of Québec, Canada. With a transparent strategic focus, Doré Copper Mining is actively advancing its belongings towards manufacturing, benefiting from its brownfields high-grade copper and gold tasks, present infrastructure, and supportive jurisdiction. The corporate’s overarching objective is to determine itself as Quebec’s subsequent copper producer, with a hub-and-spoke mining technique centered round its Copper Rand mill.
Doré Copper Mining’s operations are situated within the Chibougamau mining camp, an space identified for its historic copper and gold manufacturing, throughout the world-renowned Abitibi Greenstone Belt. The corporate’s flagship asset, Nook Bay, is complemented by a number of different tasks, together with Devlin, Joe Mann, Cedar Bay, and Copper Rand. These properties kind the inspiration of Doré Copper Mining’s near-term and future manufacturing plans.
The corporate is exclusive as a result of it owns the one mill within the space. The Copper Rand mill is designed to course of a median of 1,350 tonnes-per-day and can must be refurbished. This infrastructure provides Doré Copper Mining a major aggressive benefit, each by way of decreasing capital expenditure necessities and doubtlessly producing further income streams by processing ore from third-party operations.
Québec, as a mining jurisdiction, offers robust help for mineral exploration and improvement. It ranks extremely within the Fraser Institute’s rankings of mining-friendly jurisdictions, providing political stability, favorable tax incentives, and entry to well-established infrastructure, together with roads, rail, and energy.
Doré Copper Mining is led by an skilled and extremely expert administration crew. Ernie Mast, the corporate’s president and CEO, has over three a long time of expertise within the mining trade, together with management roles at firms reminiscent of Primero Mining and Minera Panama (Inmet Mining). Mast’s background in managing junior and small-cap mining firms is well-suited to Doré Copper Mining’s present improvement section. The broader administration and technical groups deliver a wealth of operational experience, with a number of people having in depth expertise in exploration, undertaking improvement, and mining operations in Canada and internationally.
Firm Highlights
- Doré Copper Mining’s hub-and-spoke mining mannequin—utilizing the Copper Rand mill because the central processing facility for its satellite tv for pc deposits—would help an preliminary manufacturing goal of greater than 50 million kilos of copper equal yearly, with a mine life exceeding 10 years.
- A Preliminary Financial Evaluation( PEA) was launched in 2022 outlining a comparatively modest preliminary capital expenditure of C$180.6 million, highlighting the financial potential of the undertaking with an after-tax internet current worth (NPV) of C$193 million and an inside fee of return (IRR) of twenty-two.1 p.c.
- A feasibility research is underway, which is predicted to offer extra detailed engineering knowledge and additional de-risk the operations
- Nook Bay, the flagship asset, is among the many highest-grade copper deposits in North America, with an indicated useful resource of two.6 million tonnes at a grade of two.66 p.c copper and an inferred useful resource of 5.8 million tonnes at a grade of three.44 p.c copper.
- The one hundred pc owned Copper Rand mill will probably be refurbished for future manufacturing and would be the solely working mill within the Chibougamau area. The mill can have further capability and offers the power to course of its personal ore whereas doubtlessly providing toll milling companies to different close by mining tasks.
- Doré Copper Mining is led by an skilled and extremely expert administration crew.
Key Initiatives
Doré Copper Mining’s belongings are situated inside a well known copper and gold mining area, with a protracted historical past of manufacturing. The corporate’s present technique revolves round a hub-and-spoke mannequin, with the Copper Rand mill serving because the processing hub, fed by a number of satellite tv for pc deposits. The important thing tasks within the PEA embody Nook Bay, Devlin, and Joe Mann. Different previous producing mines, like Cedar Bay and Copper Rand, have additional exploration potential.
Nook Bay (Important Asset):
Nook Bay is the cornerstone of Doré Copper Mining’s portfolio. This copper-gold deposit has demonstrated distinctive grades and exploration potential, positioning it as one of many highest-grade copper tasks in North America. The most recent useful resource estimate, as of 2022, consists of 2.7 million tonnes of indicated assets at a grade of two.66 p.c copper and 5.8 million tonnes of inferred assets at a grade of three.44 p.c copper. The deposit stays open in a number of instructions and at depth, suggesting that additional drilling might doubtlessly broaden the useful resource base and prolong the mine life.
Nook Bay is predicted to be mined by longhole open stoping with pillars and Avoca underground mining strategies. The undertaking will make the most of present infrastructure, together with a portal and decline to a depth of 115 meters. The ore will probably be processed on the Copper Rand mill, with pre-concentration of the fabric by means of ore sorting know-how on the Nook Bay website.
The PEA for the undertaking anticipates a mine lifetime of over 10 years, with the potential to supply 53 million kilos of copper equal yearly. Metallurgical testing at Nook Bay has yielded constructive outcomes, with copper recoveries starting from 96.8 p.c to 98.2 p.c, and the focus is of excessive industrial high quality, making it extremely engaging to smelters.
Devlin (Secondary Asset):
Devlin is a smaller satellite tv for pc deposit situated roughly 10 kilometers west of Nook Bay. The undertaking has a measured and indicated useful resource of 775,000 tonnes at a grade of two.17 p.c copper, together with an inferred useful resource of 484,000 tonnes at a grade of 1.79 p.c copper. Whereas Devlin’s measurement is modest in comparison with Nook Bay, it performs an important function in Doré Copper Mining’s hub-and-spoke mining technique. Ore from Devlin will probably be transported to Nook Bay for pre-concentration, earlier than being trucked to the Copper Rand mill for ultimate processing. The corporate is planning to make use of room-and-pillar and drift-and-fill mining strategies at Devlin, with operations anticipated to start shortly after Nook Bay comes on-line.
Cedar Bay:
Cedar Bay is a past-producing mine situated close to the Copper Rand mill. It produced 3.9 million tonnes of ore at a median grade of 1.63 p.c copper and three.21 grams per tonne gold throughout its working life. Doré Copper Mining drilling applications have outlined within the southwest zone 130,000 tonnes of indicated assets at a grade of 9.44 grams per tonne gold and 1.55 p.c copper, and 230,000 tonnes of inferred assets at a grade of 8.32 grams per tonne gold and a couple of,13 p.c copper .
Joe Mann:
The Joe Mann gold-copper deposit is one other part of Doré Copper Mining’s hub-and-spoke technique. Positioned 60 km south of the Copper Rand mill, Joe Mann produced 1.2 million ounces of gold and 28 million kilos of copper over its mine life, at a median grade of 8.26 grams per tonne gold and 0.25 p.c copper. The present useful resource estimate consists of 608,000 tonnes of inferred assets, with a median grade of 6.78 grams per tonne gold and 0.24 p.c copper. The PEA plan is to have Joe Mann operational as soon as Devlin is depleted, and its ore will even be processed on the Copper Rand mill.
Copper Rand:
Copper Rand was traditionally the most important copper mine within the Chibougamau camp, producing over 16 million tonnes of ore throughout its operational life, which spanned from 1959 to 2008. The mine has wonderful exploration potential, significantly at depth, the place restricted drilling was performed earlier than the mine’s closure. Copper Rand has historic reserves and assets, and wonderful potential under beforehand mined areas.
Board and Administration
Mario Stifano – Govt Chairman and Director
Mario Stifano is a seasoned mining govt and chartered skilled accountant with over 16 years of expertise working with exploration, improvement and producing mining firms. Stifano is at present the chief govt officer of Galantas Gold. Stifano has held plenty of senior govt positions together with chief govt officer of Cordoba Minerals, govt chairman with Mega Valuable Metals, vp and chief monetary officer with Lake Shore Gold, and vp and chief monetary officer of Ivernia. Stifano has been instrumental in elevating over $700 million to discover and fund mining tasks, together with elevating over $500 million at Lake Shore Gold, to develop three gold mines that are at present producing over 180,000 ounces of gold yearly, and are actually a part of the Canadian belongings inside Pan American Silver.
Ernest Mast – President, CEO, and Director
Ernest Mast has 30 years of expertise in varied technical and govt roles within the mining trade, throughout a variety of commodities, geographies and improvement phases. Mast is on the board of Scottie Sources. Mast beforehand held the positions of president and chief govt officer at Primero Mining, vp of company improvement at Copper Mountain Mining, vp of operations at New Gold and president and CEO of Minera Panama S.A., Inmet Mining Company’s subsidiary, creating the $6 billion Cobre Panama undertaking. Mast started his profession with Noranda and its associates, the place he took on roles of accelerating accountability over a 20-year timeframe. Mast is a member of l’Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec and has a bachelors’ and masters’ diploma in metallurgical engineering from McGill College. Mast additionally acquired post-secondary enterprise coaching at Henley School within the UK and on the Universidad Catolica in Chile.
Gavin Nelson – CFO
Gavin Nelson has over 15 years of finance expertise in public follow and company accounting and reporting, together with being answerable for all ranges of economic reporting and day-to-day accounting oversight for a number of public mining exploration firms. Nelson has held plenty of monetary oversight positions in mineral exploration firms, together with chief monetary officer of Mexican Gold. Nelson is a member in good standing of the chartered skilled accountants of Ontario. Nelson holds a Bachelor of Administrative and Industrial Research (Finance), with a minor in Political Science, from the College of Western Ontario.
Nicholas Kwong – COO
Nicholas Kwong, P.Eng., MBA, has greater than 15 years of company, technical, operations expertise within the mining trade, predominantly in gold and base metals in North American, Australia, Latin American and Saudi Arabia. Most not too long ago, Kwong was normal supervisor at Ma’aden Gold’s’ Sukhaybarat & Bulghah gold mines in Saudi Arabia. There he accomplished the mine and mill growth and modernization which resulted in a major improve in manufacturing and reduce in unit prices, all whereas controlling capital prices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior, he labored at New Gold from 2005 to 2019 in progressively accountable management and administration roles, beginning as a undertaking engineer for the design and building of the New Afton underground mine and steadily progressing to supervisor of mining engineering and director of technical companies.
Kwong holds a Bachelor of Utilized Sciences in Mining Engineering and a Grasp of Enterprise Administration from the College of British Columbia.