“The Chibougamau district has excellent potential and we are excited to continue our successful drill programs to identify additional high-grade copper and gold resources and to ultimately recommence operations at the high-grade copper and gold mines in a district that has produced over 3.2 million ounces of gold and 1.6 billion pounds of copper. Québec and the Eeyou Istchee (James Bay) area is an excellent mineral jurisdiction and we look forward to working with the First Nations and other stakeholders in advancing our projects.”
Ernest Mast, President and CEO Doré Copper Mining Corp.
The town of Chibougamau, Quebec is an idyllic slice of rural Canadiana…the kind of bucolic place that conjures up images of Roch Carrier’s short story and subsequent award-winning film
The Hockey Sweater.
It is also located in a region with a
rich mining history that spans well over a half century. Today, mining interests with an eye to the future see a vast, reborn mining frontier with huge potential.
One such company is
Doré Copper Mining Corp. (
TSX-V:DCMC,
Forum) – commencing trading on December 17, 2019 on the TSX Venture Exchange. Doré Copper is an early stage RTO with near-development, high-grade copper and gold assets in Quebec with district-scale exploration upside. And because of extensive and valuable existing infrastructure the company should provide junior mining investors with a distinct capital intensity advantage.
Doré Copper Mining Corp. acquired an option on 100 percent of the assets of CBay Minerals in September 2017, and shortly thereafter embarked on an ambitious 19,000 meter drill program at the Corner Bay and Cedar Bay properties. The drill program was highly successful, with a discovery cost of less than $8 gold / oz equivalent. The Company has 11 past producing mines or deposits with the potential for additional discoveries.
As a private Company, Doré Copper executed a $5.02 million private placement and then finalised a business combination as part of the RTO with Chainode Opportunities Corp. for listing on the TSX Venture Exchange.
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Doré Copper Mining: Value Drivers
- High-grade copper / gold deposits open in numerous directions
- Excellent jurisdiction – Quebec, Canada – for mine permitting and stakeholder engagement.
- Existing infrastructure, road access, power at site or nearby sourced from hydro electricity, existing mine development, existing 2,700 process plant, and existing tailings management facility.
- Environmentally-friendly mining practices
- First nations partnerships and employment opportunities.
While the price of copper has fluctuated wildly in 2019, the medium and long-term fundamentals of copper are excellent. And with bidding up, the share values of advanced copper exploration plays – especially those with high grades – are likely to increase moving forward into 2020.
4 Properties: Multiple Copper / Gold Deposits
The Company’s mining focus is on copper and gold, with four separate high-grade deposits at Corner Bay, Cedar Bay, Copper Rand, and Devlin – the former three which remain open for expansion. A Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects NI 43-101 technical report and historic disclosure at Corner Bay, Cedar Bay, and Devlin have shown “significant historic reserves and resources at Copper Rand” along with other known deposits. It is also the first time all four assets have been in one vehicle in a public company with a strong potential for new discoveries.
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Excellent Land Package and Infrastructure
Located in the prolific Lac Doré (Chibougamau) mining camp this region has, over the decades, produced in excess of 1.6 billion pounds of copper and 3.2 million ounces of gold with significant exploration potential remaining. The past-permitted mill can process 2,700 tons per day of high-grade ore and still contains a large tailings facility.
Quebec is one of the world’s most favourable mining jurisdictions with strong redevelopment support, experienced contractors and workers, plus attractive flow-through structure.
Why Copper?
Copper is a unique industrial base metal that is often overlooked by investors, despite the fact that it’s one of the most useful and reliable minerals on earth. Copper metal has distinctive value in the global market due to its industrial business enterprise worth. Not only is copper a low-risk investment, but it also yields excellent value to an investor.
Historically, scholars and geologists estimate that man first discovered copper around 9000 BCE and it was unearthed around the Bronze Age. It became a significant part of society and power in 3000 BCE. Copper, along with its alloy bronze, provided prehistoric man the ability to make superior tools for everyday use, giving birth to the term the ‘Bronze Age’.
Copper is durable, flexible, resistant to corrosion, and the most effective electrical conductor…meaning it is primarily driven by the electrification occurring all around us. Thanks to these qualities, copper is widely used in most of the leading industries for applications like transportation, electrical, engineering, automotive, cell phones, green energy, and more.
In light of the high demand for copper, investors are driven to buy and sell this unique metal and the companies that produce it for investment purposes.
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Working with First Nations People. Putting First Nations People to Work.
Experienced with mining and natural resources, the Cree Nation-based in Ouje Bougamau Quebec and Doré Copper will discuss a predevelopment agreement and eventually an Impact Benefit Agreement (IBA) with regional First Nations stakeholders.
The Company is also undertaking a progressive and proactive human resources program with the local residents. Company President and CEO Ernest Mast commented:
“We plan to use mining operations simulation equipment where we can start to train younger people and indigenous people onto a new or different career path. We are already using a drilling contractor that is a JV with First Nation Communities. To me it is very important that we use locals. And the towns of Chibougamau, Chapais and Ouje Bougamau have about 10,000 people, it’s an historic mining camp, and many of the people work in the resource industry whether it’s in pulp and paper or mining.”
Meet the Team
Doré Copper Mining Corp. offers strong management alignment and financial partnerships (Ocean Partners, Orion, and RCF). These partnerships will help provide the potential for future financing of development operations through offtake / advanced sales.
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From the CEO
In conversation with Stockhouse Editorial, CEO Ernest Mast – a mining industry veteran with over 20 years experience managing multi-million dollar operations around the globe – talked about his new Company’s its strategic initiatives in north-central Quebec, along with a brief history of Doré Copper’s origins:
“We acquired the assets as a private company in 2017 and since the acquisition we wanted proof that there’s exploration potential at the assets. So we then implemented a 19,000 metre drilling program and concentrated that on two of the assets. The program was very successful, and we were able to expand the resources at one the assets by 93 percent. We were then able to establish a maiden resource at the other asset – two deposits called Corner Bay and Cedar Bay. They complement each other very nicely where one, Corner Bay, is high-grade copper with a little bit of gold and the other is Cedar Bay with a good grade of copper of a little under two percent but a high grade of gold at over 8 grams per tonne.”
We then went on to ask the CEO what sets his Company apart from other junior mining companies in the space and what makes their business model attractive to investors:
“The first reason is we have very high grade in our assets atCedar Bay and Corner Bay. Second reason is we are going to have exploration success where we’re going to see the resources grow. Thirdly, then when we layer on top of that the fact that we already have existing infrastructure…so our cost to production should be lower than competing projects and will set us apart. Fourth, being in the province of Quebec there is a lot of financial support given by different provincial entities to get a project like our back up and running. And finally, we’re very close to the town of Chibougamauso we’re going to be a commuter site. That means the human resource aspect of the project should be a lot easier than competing projects where you have to build a camp and you have to find people to go to the camp. I think this is a great advantage for the project and to the community as a whole.”
It’s been a roller coaster ride in the copper market over the past 12 months. When asked what he thought was still left in the ground 60 years after it was first mined, here’s what Mr. Mast had to say:
“There is still a lot of exploration upside on the properties. At Corner Bay, it never was put into operation. They (former owners) developed the mine to get it into operation but stopped development at a point where they were forced to by the Financial Crises in 2008. On the other hand, we’re taking a 30,000 foot view of that property and we realize there is a lot of exploration potential down dip in a long strike of the deposit. And, there is the potential of parallel veins at Corner Bay that have never been explored.”
And finally, we asked the CEO the million dollar question – makes this particular mining project so intriguing and attractive to investors?
“Because of our grades and the lower relative cost of capital we have because of the existing infrastructure, (investors) will be able to see a story that is free cash flowing and should be able to pay off its capital relatively quickly and therefore start to build up the financial strength of the Company.”
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FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.