AGORACOM Small-cap Investor Relations Blog

• Ausenco Update for Conceptual Desk Top Study on Cañariaco Norte

Candente Copper Corp. (TSX:DNT, BVL:DNT) (“Candente Copper”, “Company”) is pleased to announce that the Desk Top Conceptual Study (“Study”) that is being conducted by Ausenco is advancing well. The mandate of the study is to identify opportunities for Cañariaco Norte to be built as a smaller higher grade project with a lower initial capital expenditure (“CapEx”) and accelerated payback period.

In addition to seeking a higher copper grade for the starter pit, we are investigating other opportunities to lower the CapEx and operational expenditures (“OpEx”) and consider better environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) practices.  All of the Desk Top work considers the potential for expansion into a larger project over time.

“While the work has taken up more time than we initially anticipated, the opportunities already identified by Ausenco to improve the project are well worth the wait.” says Joanne Freeze, President and CEO. “A more comprehensive Desk Top Study will allow the Company to follow it with a preliminary economic assessment (“PEA”) on the best possible project and we are already seeing detailed optimizations that should make substantial improvements to the project”.

Work to date has focused on:

1. Geometallurgical modelling which identifies both a wider range of metal contents in the different rock types and a wider range of metal recoveries to concentrate from the various rock types.  Combining these two aspects allows the forecast of concentrate quality followed by production that offers more flexibility and the ability to plan mine scheduling to optimize project value.  
2. The identification of current markets for our unique copper concentrate which indicate higher potential revenues due to a decrease in treatment costs.

For more details about the Study, please see News Release No. 127 (dated February 25th, 2021): https://www.candentecopper.com/news-releases/news-releases/2021/ausenco-engaged-for-desk-top-studies-on-canariaco-norte-higher-grade-project.

Read More: https://agoracom.com/ir/CandenteCopper/forums/discussion/topics/759279-candente-copper-provides-update-for-ausenco-conceptual-desk-top-study-on-ca-ariaco-norte/messages/2312533#message

Candente Copper Corp. (TSX:DNT, BVL:DNT) (“Candente Copper”, “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has engaged Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. (“Ausenco”) to conduct Desk Top Studies to identify and define a smaller, higher grade, start up option for Cañariaco with a smaller initial capital expenditure (“CapEx”) and accelerated payback period. This study is expected to take 4 to 6 weeks to complete.

Assuming favourable results from the Desk Top Studies the Company would look to move into a Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) on the Revised Project Concept which would be expected to take approximately 4 months to complete. The Company is fully funded for both levels of studies. (for more details please see News Release No. 126 dated February 22nd, 2021).

Ausenco is globally recognised for providing consulting, project delivery, and asset operations services to the international mining sector including high performance copper processing and infrastructure projects. Ausenco has a 30-year track record in delivering specialized end-to-end solutions which are proven to lower capital and operating costs, reduce construction time and improve plant efficiencies.

Ausenco’s project experience ranges from small conceptual studies for new developments through to the construction of large scale minerals processing facilities. In Peru, Ausenco’s experience includes providing Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management services to design, construct, and commission the 25 million tonnes per year concentrator and associated infrastructure for the Constancia Copper Molybdenum Project owned by Hudbay.

Furthermore, Ausenco is currently in the final stages of providing Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management services to design, construct, and commission two processing facilities that will process 6 million tonnes per year of copper sulfide ore and 12 million tonnes per year of oxide ore via solvent extraction and oxide leaching facility (along with associated infrastructure) for the Mina Justa project owned by Marcobre S.A.C. (controlled by Minsur S.A.).

Recently, Mantos Copper Holding has engaged Ausenco for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) the 30,000 tonne per day copper concentrator plant and related infrastructure at the Mantoverde Development Project in Chile.

Read More: https://agoracom.com/ir/CandenteCopper/forums/discussion/topics/756063-ausenco-engaged-for-desk-top-studies-on-ca-ariaco-norte-higher-grade-project/messages/2305341#message

• Engineering studies to identify and define various value add options for the development of the Cañariaco Project.
• First goal is to define/identify a smaller, higher grade, start up option for Cañariaco with a smaller CapEx and accelerated payback period

Candente Copper Corp. (TSX:DNT, BVL:DNT) (“Candente Copper”, “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has received and is reviewing proposals from two internationally acclaimed engineering firms for engineering studies to identify and define various value add options for the development of the Cañariaco Project.

The first goal of the engineering study is to define/identify a smaller, higher grade, start up option for Cañariaco with a smaller initial capital expenditure (“CapEx”) and accelerated payback period. This is expected to be able to be permitted and financed to production more quickly than the larger option. The intention would be that once the development capital is paid back, the smaller operation could then be expanded to fully recognize the value of the large copper-gold resource that exists at Cañariaco.

The second goal is to explore other potential options with a mind to establish both cost efficiencies and environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) friendly development options. Current industry wide ESG initiatives and responsible investing is driving innovation in environmentally friendly, sustainable development and finance products. This innovation has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and increased urgency around the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, resulting in many new development options to consider now.

Read More: https://agoracom.com/ir/CandenteCopper/forums/discussion/topics/755788-corporate-update-and-engineering-study-proposals-under-evaluation/messages/2304699#message

• Candente owns Cañariaco Norte, a large, economic, copper ore body in Peru
• 100% owned feasibility-stage porphyry copper deposit; a single, contiguous, open-pit mineable deposit of:
• 7.5B pounds Measured and Indicated and can be mined for 22 years once in production.
• Once in production Canariaco is in the lowest quartile of production costs for projects waiting to be developed.
• Operating costs of US$0.988 per pound of copper
• Capable of generating annual production of 262,000,000lbs of copper, 39,000 oz gold & 911,000 oz silver over initial mine life of 22 yrs(@ 95,000 tpd).

• The transition to an electrified clean energy economy is going to result in a monumental draw on metals and minerals from the earth’s crust
• The new energy transition hardware requires earthly resources — metals and minerals — which are suddenly escalating in price

Prices of copper, nickel, cobalt, platinum and rare earth elements are all inflating as electric vehicles and the wider electrification trend starts pulling on constrained resources. Photo by Getty Images/Bloomberg/Reuters

Like many in the energy business, I marvel at how fast the cost of producing renewable power, LED light bulbs and lithium-ion batteries has fallen over the past decade. Depending on what’s being measured, some costs are down by more than 90 per cent.

Should we assume these downward-trending cost curves are sustainable? And will this type of cost reduction be applicable to other emerging clean energy devices?

Based on advances in technology and more efficient manufacturing processes, the short answer is a qualified yes. Yet, we shouldn’t be blinded by the glow of the new economy — things like data science, process engineering, robotics and advanced materials — which, to date, have been the principal drivers for achieving these cost reductions.

Much of the new energy transition hardware requires earthly resources — metals and minerals — which are suddenly escalating in price

From the shadows, we are now seeing that the old economy isn’t so old after all. Much of the new energy transition hardware requires earthly resources — metals and minerals — which are suddenly escalating in price.

Prices of copper, nickel, cobalt, platinum and rare earth elements are all inflating as electric vehicles and the wider electrification trend starts pulling on constrained resources. For example, nickel prices just closed shy of a five-year high, copper is up 30 per cent from pre-COVID levels, and cobalt has jumped 25 per cent in value in 2021 alone.

I should note that the solar industry’s achievements are often quoted as a template to how fast clean energy costs can come down. But let’s be careful. Made from silicon, the most plentiful element in the earth’s crust (think sand), solar panels don’t have a resource constraint problem. Many of the vital metals and minerals needed to electrify transport and other industrial segments of our economy don’t enjoy t

There are now dozens of electric vehicle manufacturers at various stages of development around the world. Tesla Inc. is the leader, of course. Volkswagen AG is going all-in, and General Motors Co. is expected to accelerate from a trot to a gallop by mid-decade. Upstart companies are collectively raising billions of dollars to roll out new models. Expectations for EV sales are at high voltage, and now those expectations are zapping the resource sector. No wonder some investment analysts speak about a forthcoming “commodity supercycle.”

Consider the scale of what’s happening.

Tesla sold just shy of 500,000 vehicles last year. It’s an impressive number, but — in a world of a billion-plus cars — it’s still de minimis. At Tesla’s current rate of sales, it would take over 2,000 years to replace the world’s fleet of combustion-engine vehicles. We have barely dented the market for EVs.

The assumption that costs for new energy technologies will fall smoothly and forever needs a serious rethink

Now let’s look at what it takes to power one of them. A typical 75-kilowatt-hour electric car battery is 5,000 times the capacity of the one in your mobile phone. And that’s for a medium-sized sedan such as Tesla’s Model 3, not the super-sized pickup truck or SUV that most people are aspiring to develop.

From a money lens, the demand for natural resources is getting to be much more than a dent. Mining.com’s EV Metal Index for  November 2020 show that sales of lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel just for making EV batteries have risen rapidly to US$325 million per month. A mere four years ago, that number was a tenth of that. And we are going to sell how many EVs by 2030?

The point is, we don’t need a spreadsheet to realize that the transition to an electrified clean energy economy is going to result in a monumental draw on metals and minerals from the earth’s crust. And it’s going to cost a lot more money. In the past few months, rising commodity prices are a wake-up call to that reality. In the old economy, an inflection of demand that pulls on constrained resources leads to price spikes.

At a minimum, the assumption that costs for new energy technologies will fall smoothly and forever needs a serious rethink, especially for metal-intense segments of the business. At worst, commodity price inflation that passes through to end customers will restrain adoption of new-age products.

Sure, the challenges can be overcome. When commodity prices rise, more resource projects are permitted, financed and built, often in unsavory places.

We’ve seen it before. The world grew its oil production from nothing to an unfathomable 100 million barrels a day. But it took 150 years and hundreds of trillions of dollars. Along the way, there were plenty of commodity supercycles, not to mention geopolitical issues, which is a whole other supercharged issue when it comes to rare and geographically concentrated minerals.

And the challenges can be overcome by technology, too. For example, a new generation of solid-state batteries will ease the pressure on some metals, though the timeline for those is a decade out.

The resource world doesn’t move nearly as fast as technology, which is why commodity value is now chasing technology value. And the larger lesson is that the new economy can’t go anywhere without the old.

SOURCE: https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/another-commodity-supercycle-is-coming-this-time-driven-by-renewable-energy-and-evs

SPONSOR: Candente Copper owns 100% of the Canariaco copper project, which includes the Feasibility stage Canariaco Norte deposit. Canariaco is included in Goldman Sachs 84 Top Copper Projects Worldwide and Fortesque is a 19% owner of Candente.

• Industrial metal boosted by China’s economic rebound and ‘green stimulus’ expectations

(Bloomberg) — Copper powered to a seven-year high as the rush for growth played out in metals markets, with traditional haven gold dropping amid growing optimism for an end to the coronavirus pandemic.

Bullion extended losses below $1,800 an ounce and copper added to a four-week surge on bets the looming roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines will help drive an economic recovery. The moves deepen a wider pivot into risk assets in November, with global stocks heading for a record month.

“Robust price rallies in industrial commodities like copper point to an ongoing rotation from a risk-averse to risk-on asset market regime,” Citigroup Inc. analysts including Aakash Doshi wrote in an emailed note. Gold faces a “more uncertain path in 2021” as global growth prospects improve, they said.

The latest boost for risk appetite came over the weekend, when two of America’s top health officials said a vaccine will be deployed across the U.S. before the end of the year. Elsewhere, an index of China’s manufacturing sector rose to a three-year high on Monday and the country is taking steps to boost domestic consumption, including of autos and home appliances.

“Macro factors are driving copper trading,” Chinese brokerage Jinrui Futures Co. wrote in note on Monday. “The market sentiment is really bullish right now amid a combination of vaccines, economic recovery, and a smooth U.S. presidential transition.”

• Copper rose as much as 2.6% to $7,692.50 a ton, the highest since March 2013. The metal traded at $7,634 by 9:55 a.m. London time and is heading for the biggest monthly gain since 2016.
• Iron ore also joined the rally, with Singapore futures up 1.3% and heading for a monthly gain of more than 11%. Prices briefly spiked more than 9% to touch $140 a ton, the highest since futures began trading in 2013, before swiftly paring gains.
• Gold fell 0.8% to $1,773.59 an ounce, on track for a fourth straight monthly loss. Silver dropped 1.8%.

Bullion is suffering as investors reverse this year’s hunt for havens amid deep economic ruptures and a fractious U.S. general election. But other factors that favor gold — ultra-dovish monetary policy and the risk of steeper inflation — remain in place.

”The current weakness of gold is all the more remarkable given that the U.S. dollar is likewise weak,” Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG, said in an emailed note. “After the price fell below the support level at $1,800 on Friday, the technical picture became even more gloomy, which no doubt has prompted further short-term-oriented investors to withdraw.”

SOURCE: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/copper-shines-gold-struggles-as-investors-chase-riskier-assets-1.1529338

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Candente Copper Corp. (TSX:DNT, BVL:DNT) (“Candente Copper”, “Company”) is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into an Assignment Agreement (“AA”) with Forte Copper Corp. (“Forte Copper”), on the Don Gregorio copper-gold porphyry project.

The Company entered into an Option Agreement on the Don Gregorio project with Forte Copper (previously known as Plan B Minerals) in 2017. The recently signed Assignment Agreement allows Forte Copper to move ahead with applications for drilling permits.

Under the Assignment and Option Agreements Forte Copper has the right to earn a 60% interest in the Don Gregorio property by completing the following terms:

1. Making payments of US$500,000 to Candente; and
2. Drilling 10,000 metres within three years of receiving drilling permits of which 5,000 metres must be drilled within two years; Forte Copper may pay $100/metre cash in lieu of metres not drilled.
3. The Assignment Agreement is for 5 years such that if the 10,000 metres have not been drilled (including cash paid in lieu), then the property must be returned to Candente Copper Corp.

To date, the Company has received payments totalling: US$100,000 and reimbursements for fees for annual mineral rights totalling US$41,540.

Candente Copper acquired the Don Gregorio from the Peruvian government in a competitive auction in 2008. Don Gregorio covers a mineralized (copper-gold) porphyry system, that occurs within the same geological trend as Yanacocha, Cerro Corona and Cañariaco.

Don Gregorio (previously referred to as La Huaca) was discovered by Ingemmet (Peruvian government geological survey) in 1974 during a regional exploration program. In 1977, 8 holes were drilled to a maximum of 107 metres (“m”) and intersected o.22 to o.56% Cu over 15m to 100m, averaging 50m and bottoming in mineralization. These holes were not analysed for gold.

In 1992, a Newmont Buenaventura Joint Venture (“JV”) discovered a gold (“Au”) zone in surface samples covering 200m by 700m coincident with copper (“Cu”) previously delineated in a north-northwesterly trending zone. In 1995, the Newmont-Buenaventura JV drilled 4 holes in 800m. These 4 holes were also mineralized to final depths.

The 12 holes totalling 1,642m drilled to date indicate copper and gold mineralization occurs over a minimum of 400m vertically from 2,600 to 2,200 metres in elevation.

Mineral intercepts in the historic drilling include 153.3m of 0.394 percent (“%”) Cu & 0.18 grams per tonne (“g/t “) Au.

Surface samples collected to date include assays of:

• 20m of 1.23% Cu and 0.26 g/t Au
• 9m at 1.13% Cu and 0.90 g/t Au
• 3m at 1.36% Cu and 0.84 g/t Au

About Candente Copper
Candente Copper is a mineral exploration company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties. The Company is currently focused on its 100% owned Cañariaco project, which includes the Feasibility stage Cañariaco Norte deposit as well as the Cañariaco Sur deposit and Quebrada Verde prospect, located within the western Cordillera of the Peruvian Andes in the Department of Lambayeque in Northern Peru.

About Forte Copper
Forte Copper is a private company that announced a go public RTO transaction with Collingwood Resources on August 18, 2020. Through its wholly owned Peruvian subsidiaries, Forte either owns, controls or, has an option to control three prospective gold and copper exploration projects in Peru. Forte Copper’s business strategy is focused on exploration target development, testing and resolution, and resource development within prominent and under-explored copper and gold regions of Peru.

Joanne C. Freeze, P.Geo., CEO, is the Qualified Persons as defined by National Instrument 43-101 for the projects discussed above. She has reviewed and approved the contents of this release.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Candente Copper relies upon litigation protection for forward-looking statements.

On behalf of the Board of Candente Copper Corp.

“Joanne C. Freeze” P.Geo.
President, CEO and Director
___________________________________
For further information please contact:

[email protected]
www.candentecopper.com