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Koryx Copper (TSXV: KRY) said on Wednesday it has received funding commitments of C$10 million ($7.4 million) to help advance its flagship Haib project in Namibia and other copper exploration projects in Zambia.
Under a private placement, the company will issue approximately 9 million shares priced at C$1.10 per share. The stock opened the session at C$1.16, and by 11:20 a.m. ET, it had surged 6.5% to C$1.25 a share for a market capitalization of C$62.6 million ($46.5m).
The private placement represents the third financing announced by Koryx this year to support the development of its Haib project, which is host to a large copper-molybdenum porphyry deposit that has been advanced to the PEA (preliminary economic assessment) stage.
The PEA, with an effective date of May 2020, outlined a potential 24-year mine at Haib with annual copper production capacity of 35,332 tonnes in cathodes and 51,080 tonnes in sulphates. The base-case scenario gave the project a post-tax net present value (at 7.5% discount) of $611 million and internal rate of return of 22.7%.
The project, located in southern Namibia, has a long history of exploration and had seen development by multiple operators. Koryx, then operating under the name Deep-South Resources, acquired the exclusive prospecting licence covering the deposit, in 2004. The total licensed area is 74,563 hectares.
Prior to that, more than 70,000 metres of drilling have been conducted at Haib, with significant exploration programs led by companies including Falconbridge (1964), Rio Tinto (1975) and Teck (2014), the latter of which remains a strategic shareholder.
The Haib copper project had been the subject of a long-dragged court battle with Namibia’s mining ministry, which in 2021 declined to renew the company’s licence for failing to reach the feasibility stage and conduct the required drilling.
However, in March 2023, the company prevailed and won a favourable ruling from a judge in the High Court of Namibia, who ordered the mining ministry to restart the licence renewal procedures. A new licence was subsequently issued that summer.
Following the licence renewal, Koryx has since completed the remaining half of the 10,000-metre drill program that it had planned before being sidetracked by the licence dispute.
After receiving all assays from the 2023-24 drill program, the company earlier this month tabled an updated mineral resource for Haib, which showed 414 million tonnes grading 0.35% copper for 3.2 billion lb. copper in the indicated category and 345 million tonnes at 0.33% copper for 2.5 billion lb. copper in the inferred category.
Compared to the previous mineral resource, this represented an overall grade increase of 13-14% of the entire Haib deposit, said Koryx’s executive chairman Heye Daun in a news release, adding that the resource increase was “remarkable” given the relatively limited amount of new drilling that was completed.
According to the company, a follow-on diamond core drill program comprising 8,200 metres will begin shortly, targeting higher-grade areas and potential mineral resource extensions at Haib.
