Arizona Sonoran Copper (ASCU) - Re-Boot, Re-Build and Raring to Go

Arizona Sonoran Copper Company is a junior mining company with its principal asset being the Cactus Mine project located in Arizona, USA. The company’s objective is to become a mid-tier copper producer, through the advancement of its Cactus Mine project.

The Cactus mine project is a 100%-owned, 4,000-acre land package located 75 miles southwest of the city of Tucson in Arizona, USA. The project holds both a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) and a mineral resource estimate (MRE). The company at the end of September 2022 published the maiden mineral resource estimate of its Parks/Salyer deposit, which is located immediately southwest of the Cactus deposit on its contiguous private land package. The maiden mineral resource estimate of the Parks/Salyer deposit sees the company’s global leachable mineral resource inventory double.

Arizona Sonoran Copper Co. is currently underway with various engineering studies including Column leach and bottle roll testing. The company is also underway with exploration and infill drilling initiatives at its Parks/Salyer deposit. The engineering studies are occurring in parallel to the company’s various exploration initiatives, with the aim being the conversion of mineralisation to the indicated category at the Parks Salyer deposit

The company will in conjunction with its infill drilling initiatives at the Parks/Salyer deposit also conduct infill drilling at its Cactus deposit in the near future. Arizona Sonoran Copper Co. will also aim to publish a bankable feasibility study of the Cactus Mine project by early 2024 as well as publishing a pre-feasibility study of the project, which includes the recently delineated mineral resources of the Parks/Salyer deposit in 2023.

Management and shareholders

Arizona Sonoran Copper Co. is led by George Ogilvie, who serves as president and CEO. Ogilvie joined the company in June 2021. He started his career with Anglo Gold in South Africa after obtaining a degree in Mining and Petroleum Engineering from Strathclyde University in Glasgow. Ogilvie has more than 30 years of experience in the mining industry, and served as the CEO and President of Battle North Gold Corp. Ogilvie through his time at Battle North Gold Corp. showed his proficiency and skill in turning a company’s finances around. He joined Battle North Gold Corp. amid the company being under financial insolvency and restructuring proceedings and led the company to be acquired by Evolution Ltd. in May 2021, at a 45% premium to the prevailing spot price.

Ian McMullan is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the company and holds a Bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. McMullan has more than 25 years of experience in mining operations and has been involved with various open-pit as well as underground mining operations throughout the USA and Canada. He previously served as the vice president of operations for Klondex Mines Ltd., until its acquisition by Hecla Mining Company. He is also accredited with managing the full production ramp-up of the Leeville Mine, and the expansion of the Carlin Portal Mines, both in Nevada.

Nicholas Nikolakakis is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and VP of finance for the company. Nikolakakis has more than 27 years of experience in corporate finance, accounting and senior management within the mining sector. He previously served as the CFO for Battle North Gold Corp. as well as vice president of corporate finance for Barrick Gold Corp. Nikolakakis, in his time at Barrick Gold Corp., led a USD$ 1 billion project financing initiative for the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic as well as successfully negotiated a USD$ 1.5 billion corporate revolving credit facility.

Rita Adiani serves as the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development for the company. Adiani has more than 16 years of experience in the mining industry and is responsible for leading the execution of the company’s initial public offering (IPO) and other corporate development and finance activities for the company.

Douglas Bowden is the Vice President of exploration for the company and has more than 40 years of experience in mineral exploration throughout North America and Mexico. Travis Snider and Alison Dwoskin round out the team as the Vice President of sustainability and external relations and the Director of investor relations respectively.

Ogilvie explains the company’s management team as ideally suited to bring the company’s Cactus mine project back into production.

“With the skills that we have within the management, both myself and my management team, we have lots of operations experience of bringing mines into production and actually running them cost-effectively and profitably for shareholders.”

Projects

The Cactus mine project is a 100%-owned, 4,000-acre land package located 75 miles southwest of the city of Tucson in Arizona, USA. The project holds a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) as well as a mineral resource estimate (MRE). The MRE shows 0.55 billion pounds of copper in the indicated category and 0.78 billion pounds of copper in the inferred category. The PEA, which was conducted at a copper price of USD$ 3.35 per pound, shows highlights including an 18-year life of mine, and an average annual production rate of 28-kilo tons of LME Grade A copper cathode. The average all-in-sustaining cost of production is USD$ 1.88 per pound of copper. The project’s post-tax NPV8% is USD$ 312 million and the post-tax internal rate of return (IRR) is at 33%.

The company at the end of September 2022 published the maiden mineral resource estimate of its Parks/Salyer deposit, which is located immediately southwest of the Cactus project on contiguous private land. The maiden mineral resource estimate sees the company’s global leachable copper resource inventory double. The mineral resource estimate of the deposit shows 1.46 million tons of contained copper in the inferred category. The addition of the Parks/Salyer’s maiden mineral resource estimate leads to the global copper resources of the company being 806 million tons of copper in the indicated category and 2,45 billion tons of copper in the inferred category.  

The company believes that with the Cactus and the Parks/Salyer deposits being in proximity and in the same land parcel, any future processing initiatives should be located in such a manner that it is accessible by both deposits. Ogilvie explains the company’s intent with the combined deposits as follows:

“Ultimately, we believe that we can get this operation up to 100,000 tons of copper cathode production on an annual basis. The PEA initially started out with 28,000 short tons. We're currently seeing about 35,000 short tons in the pre-feasibility study, but as I said earlier, that does not include the Parks/Salyer deposit, so there is certainly an opportunity with Parks/Salyer coming into the production profile that we could move this up to 50,000-75,000 short tons of annual copper production.”

Current activities

Arizona Sonoran Copper Co. is currently underway with various engineering studies including Column leach and bottle roll testing programs. The column leach testing program of the Cactus deposit aims to enable a feasibility-level metallurgical program on the deposit. The results of the column leach tests are expected by the end of 2023. The bottle roll testing program is focused on the Parks/Salyer deposit. The bottle roll testing is aimed at enabling column leach tests which the company aims to conduct in October.

Ogilvie explains that the engineering studies are occurring in parallel to the company’s various exploration initiatives, with the aim of the exploration being the conversion of mineralisation to the indicated category at the Parks Salyer deposit.

“We've now started the infill drilling on 250 ft centres, and that'll bring Parks/Salyer into an indicated resource sometime towards the end of the first quarter of 2023, which will then allow us to take that indicated resource and build it into a rescoped PFS in the summer of next year. As you know, an indicated resource can move over into probable reserves and, therefore, the mine plan, and the financial and economic model will be hopefully and positively impacted by Parks/Salyer.”

Future

Arizona Sonoran Copper Co. plans to raise funds towards the end of Q2 2023. The company will be focused on increasing the number of retail investors through the raise, with Ogilvie stating:

“I think we need a little more retail in the story. Obviously, we're heavily weighted on the institutional side, that's one of the reasons why from a marketing perspective we're paying a little more attention to the retail investor. We think over the course of the next year, if we could get more retail into the stock, that'll help with liquidity and should help with the share price.”

The company will in conjunction with its infill drilling initiatives at the Parks/Salyer deposit also conduct infill drilling at its Cactus deposit in the near future. Arizona Sonoran Copper Co. will also aim to publish a bankable feasibility study of the Cactus Mine project by early 2024 as well as publishing a pre-feasibility study of the project, which includes the recently delineated mineral resources of the Parks/Salyer deposit by early 2024. Ogilvie sums up the company’s future endeavours as follows:

“We are continuing to do the infill drilling on Parks/Salyer, so we're going to see infill drilling results between now and the end of the first quarter of next year. Also, we're planning on mobilising one of our additional drills in the next several weeks, which will go back onto the Cactus project and will continue with the infill drilling there, which essentially is to move indicated resources into the measured category. This is ahead of a bankable feasibility study towards the back end of 2023, or early 2024. We plan on putting out a rescoped PFS on the project in the summer of 2023, that would incorporate Parks/Salyer, and we believe that will be extremely accretive for the shareholders of the company.”

To find out more, go to the Arizona Sonoran Copper website