7 Million Tonnes Of Copper Ready To Go, Right Here In The U.S.
Gordon Neal President & CEO of World Copper LTD was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access.
World Copper is an oxide copper-focused exploration, development and production company with two proven resources, one in Arizona and one in Chile. The Arizona "Zonia" project has a vast store of copper right here in the U.S.
Copper is a critical component of the global energy transition. It's used in electrical components, smartphones, electric vehicles and solar power, among its many other applications.
World Copper is an oxide copper-focused exploration, development and production company with two proven resources, one in Arizona and one in Chile. The Arizona "Zonia" project has a vast store of copper right here in the U.S.
Copper is a critical component of the global energy transition. It's used in electrical components, smartphones, electric vehicles and solar power, among its many other applications.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Gordon, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on what part of the world
00:08you're in.
00:09But thank you so much for joining us here today.
00:10Yeah.
00:11Thank you for having me.
00:12Can you hear me?
00:13I hear you loud and clear, and I'm excited to have the conversation.
00:16But for the folks at home that might not be familiar with your company, give us a brief
00:20overview.
00:21What is it that you do?
00:22Well, we are a copper in America made by Americans for Americans.
00:27We are World Copper.
00:28We have the Zonia project in Arizona.
00:32Zonia is in the Yappapi province, and we actually are looking at starting up our operation in
00:41the next couple of years.
00:43However, we have copper and more copper than we can count at Zonia.
00:50It's really exciting for us.
00:52The United States needs copper to compete against China and to build its electric vehicles,
00:57to build its wind turbines and its solar panels.
01:01We are going to meet some of that demand.
01:04You know, so much of my growing up was, hey, if you want to get inexpensive labor, you
01:10go overseas.
01:11What advantages do we have by mining it in the U.S.?
01:14Well, the advantage we have in the U.S. is that Arizona is the largest copper producing
01:21state in the United States.
01:23It's number seven on the Fraser Index, which is very high.
01:27We can actually make, we can probably produce, we've got a billion pounds of copper at Zonia.
01:34We could produce a hundred million pounds a year at Zonia, and we can do it economically
01:40because we're on private land.
01:43We have power on site.
01:44We have water on site, and the strip ratio is one to one, so it's ready.
01:48It's basically the ore sticking out of the ground.
01:51That mitigates any kind of labor costs that you're sort of comparing in China.
01:58This project is ready to go, and the fact that everything's ready to come out of the
02:02ground makes it cheaper.
02:04Is there anything else that's unique about the Zonia product, or the project, excuse
02:08me, that our viewers should know about?
02:09Yeah, there is a unique aspect of it.
02:12We actually just discovered that there's seven million tons, or about 50 million pounds of
02:18copper that sits right on top of our leach pads.
02:21It means the previous owner, this was a previous mine, so the previous owner actually brought
02:28ore out of the pit, crushed it, put it on the leach pads, but he ran out of money.
02:33This metal is sitting on top of the leach pad, which means that all I have to do, all
02:36we have to do, is to move it from the old leach pads onto new leach pads and process
02:42it, which means I can get probably, at $4 copper, $200 million in cash before I even
02:48get into production.
02:50That's a really big plus for World Copper and for Zonia.
02:54Yeah, especially with the amount that you have there.
02:56Let's talk about the ESG efforts and how you can ensure that your mining practices are
03:01environmentally friendly, because that's what so many people are focused on when it comes
03:04to drilling and other aspects of our world.
03:07Yeah, good question.
03:09We are an oxide deposit, so just de facto, we don't use, we don't have a smelter that
03:16smelts the product and we don't have a concentrator which creates deleterious or bad materials.
03:23We basically use what's called an SXEW, Solvent Extraction Electro Winning System.
03:31It is more environmental, lower footprint, lower cost.
03:37We use very little materials that could hurt the environment.
03:41Additionally, we're looking at going at net zero.
03:45That means we're looking at powering the project with solar panels and using either electric
03:53vehicles, trucks and haulers and shovels to take the material out of the pit.
04:01We are looking at being environmental.
04:03We already are environmental by the fact that we use an SXEW process, but we're actually
04:09looking at augmenting that by adding those other features of solar power and electric
04:16vehicles.
04:17Now, so many of these ideas are great, they sound good on paper.
04:21The execution is where it comes into play, led by the team that you have.
04:25What kind of experience does your leadership team have to make sure that this goes seamlessly
04:29as you're expecting?
04:31My head of technical is a guy named Derek White.
04:33Derek had built the Sierra Gorda copper mine in Chile.
04:38He built the Carlotta copper mine in Arizona.
04:41That's an SXEW mine.
04:43He built the Frankie mine in BC, and he built the Premier mine.
04:49He's recently just turned that on at British Columbia.
04:51Joe Phillips is also my co-head of technical.
04:54He's built 11 copper mines in 14 different countries.
04:58I've been in this business since the early 2000s.
05:01I was with MagSilver and with New Pacific Metals, took them to billion-dollar market
05:08cap companies.
05:10On the technical side, we can build mines, build copper mines, and on the market side,
05:15we know how to make sure that our investors are well taken care of, informed, and we do
05:20the right thing in the governance side to make sure that we grow the company on a value
05:24basis.
05:25I want to talk about global expansion and the assets that you might be able to get from
05:29there.
05:30I don't know if I asked you, Zonia Project, do we have an estimated value on that, or
05:35is that the $7 million that you had mentioned, or is that how much you have?
05:38No.
05:39The $7 million I was talking about was $7 million tons of ore on the project.
05:44Right now, the market's giving us a $25 million market cap value.
05:50My experience is I've taken MagSilver was $50 million when I started.
05:55When I finished, it was $2.5 billion.
05:57New Pacific was $100 million.
06:00When I finished, it was $1.5 billion.
06:02When we grew it in value to its real valuation, at $25 million for world copper, I think that
06:08the Zonia Project alone could be worth $500 million to $600 million just alone.
06:14With the 200 million tons, basically a billion pounds of copper that it has, it's worth,
06:19when you do that times four, it's worth at least $500 million to $600 million.
06:26Now, going back to the global expansion side of things, what does a broader market look
06:30like for copper?
06:32Is it a global energy transition that's going to impact the demand?
06:36What are your thoughts there?
06:37Yes.
06:38Well, it's pretty obvious that if you're trying to decarbonize the world, you're hitting net
06:43zero by 2030.
06:44I'm pretty sure we won't make that.
06:462050 is another question, but to get there, we need so much copper and you need lithium,
06:53but you need copper as well to get there.
06:56We don't have enough.
06:57We don't have enough mines right now that are going into production to produce even
07:02a tenth of what we need.
07:05That's why Zonia is important.
07:07We are a billion pounds rather than 3 billion pounds, but we can get this thing into production
07:12in three years, three to four years.
07:15That's the main thing.
07:16There's a deficit.
07:17You need to take care of it quickly.
07:19Smaller, more nimble projects like Zonia are what the world needs right now to get the
07:25copper online.
07:26All right.
07:27Well, hey, look, I appreciate the conversation, but before we kind of wrap things up, was
07:30there anything else that I missed to bring up that you wanted to let our viewers know
07:33about?
07:34No, other than the fact that we are, I mean, my wife's a little worried because I'm getting
07:39out of bed at 5.30, 5 o'clock, 5.30 in the morning because I'm so excited about getting
07:43this thing into production.
07:46We have a real chance here to make an impact on the copper market with Zonia, and we're
07:52working hard, and we will get the project and our shareholders will benefit from the
07:57work that we're going to be doing putting this into production.
08:00Well, I know we've got a mining webinar later on in August.
08:02We hope you'll be joining us there, but Gordon, thank you so much for your conversation here
08:06today.
08:07I appreciate your time.
08:08Thank you, Zunig.