Gold Royalty adds BHP’s Brazil mine to portfolio in $70M deal

Staff Writer | December 8, 2025 | 1:05 pm Markets Latin America Copper Gold

Pedra Branca is located in the southern part of the Carajás in the state of Pará in the North of Brazil. (Image courtesy of Oz Minerals.)

Gold Royalty (NYSE-A: GROY) has agreed to buy an existing royalty on the Pedra Branca mine held by BlackRock World Mining Trust for $70 million cash. The copper-gold mine, located in the Carajás region of Brazil, is currently operated by BHP Group (ASX: BHP).

The acquisition further enhances Gold Royalty’s already-strong gold exposure from both a revenue and asset value perspective, and offers further exposure to copper exposure at a time when long-term fundamentals are strong, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The royalty includes a 25% net smelter return (NSR) royalty on gold and 2% NSR royalty on copper and other products produced from Pedra Branca, covering both the Pedra Branca East and Pedra Branca West deposits.

David Garofalo, chairman and CEO of Gold Royalty, said the acquisition of the Pedra Branca royalty “represents an immediate and material addition” to the company’s cash flows.

For the 12 months ended June 30, the royalty expense recorded to the prior holder was approximately $7.9 million, equivalent to approximately 2,800 gold-equivalent ounces at an average gold price of $2,811 per ounce, Gold Royalty noted.

Upon completion, Gold Royalty’s portfolio would include eight cash-flowing assets and a pipeline of over 250 royalty and streaming interests, Garofalo added.

$70M financing

To fund the acquisition, Gold Royalty separately announced that it would complete a bought deal financing to raise gross proceeds of $70 million — equal to the royalty purchase price.

Led by National Bank Capital Markets, BMO Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets as joint bookrunners, the company plans to sell 17.5 million common shares at a price of $4.00 per share.

Gold Royalty’s stock closed Monday’s session down 9.5% at $3.85 apiece, for a market capitalization of $758.3 million.

Former Oz mine

Located in Água Azul do Norte, Brazil, the Pedra Branca mine forms part of the Carajás East operation previously held by Oz Minerals, which bought the project in 2018 from its Australian peer Avanco Resources. In 2020, Oz brought the Pedra Branca East deposit into production, and two years later, ramped up the underground mine into full production.

BHP took over the project through its takeover of Oz in 2023, and has since extended its mine life and reported increases in its resources/reserves. Its June 2025 annual report estimated that the project currently holds 2.4 measured tonnes of material at 1.68% copper and 0.47 g/t gold and 12 indicated tonnes at 1.41% copper and 0.40 g/t gold.

In August 2025, BHP announced that CoreX Holding BV, an industrial conglomerate backed by Turkish billionaire Robert Yuksel Yildirim, had agreed to acquire Pedra Branca, along with the other Carajás copper assets, in a deal worth up to $465 million. The deal is currently pending satisfaction of customary closing conditions.