Mineral exploration company Iron Bull Mining is positioning itself to capitalise on an expected copper supply squeeze through its copper development in northern Namibia and also aims to lead the development of Africa’s next big copper basin.
Over the next five years, by developing assets in the Kaokoland copper basin (KCB), which is considered to be the untapped sister basin to the African copper basin (ACB) and offers significant opportunity to present as its rival copper basin, Iron Bull Mining is targeting a mineral resource build of 300-million tonnes at 1% copper, or three-million tonnes of contained copper.
“It seems there is unanimity of consensus that there will be a significant shortfall in copper to meet demand after 2025. “That, coupled with no clear line of sight for the next big find, leads to many commentators believing that copper prices must rise to offer an attractive incentive price for investment,” Iron Bull Mining CEO Craig Hutton says.
According to the company, the KCB is a virgin copper basin, with Iron Bull Mining becoming the first to establish a scalable and commercially sizeable mining operation, which will provide first mover advantages in the Kunene province.
The company’s strategy is twofold, with Iron Bull Mining intending to develop the current mineral resource on its exploration prospecting licence (EPL) 7071 to generate cash from small-scale mining operations and reinvest that to aggressively advance a major exploration programme and develop additional mines.
“Generating cash exploration reduces the funding burden on shareholders and eliminates dilution of early investors,” he says, noting that it had acquired the EPL 7071 from TSX-V-listed White Metal Resources to accelerate its strategy to secure near-term small-scale production.
“The strategy is to develop the mining operations in a modular and dynamic fashion, because experience has shown that this enables one to adjust production according to market demand and prices, while minimising initial capital intensity and boosting the net present value of the project.”
The EPL contains a NI 43-101 code compliant mineral resource containing 250-million pounds of contained copper grading 1.53% copper and 27 g/t silver.
Iron Bull Mining has secured additional EPLs that are highly prospective for copper mineralisation.
Further, Iron Bull Mining has secured a long-term strategic mining partner that will co-develop mining assets and support the further exploration of the basin, which is similar in size to the ACB, spanning an area in excess of 200 km north-south by 80 km east-west.
A key strategic partner that has invested in Iron Bull Mining is Horizon Corporation, which has existing mine tailings operations in Zambia and is the owner-operator of the Manica gold mine in Mozambique.
Economic geology team TECT Geological Services have been retained to model and generate geological targets for the exploration effort.
In addition, Iron Bull Mining has partnered with pyrometallurgical engineering company XRAM, which designed and deployed proprietary mobile smelting units.
XRAM owner and founder Jacques Byleveld is also a shareholder in Iron Bull Mining.-miningweekly