First Quantum pegs Argentina copper mine’s value at $5.9B

A new technical report on First Quantum Minerals’ (TSX: FM) Taca Taca copper-gold project in northwest Argentina shows the project’s value has more than doubled in five years thanks in part to higher reserves and commodity prices.

Assuming an 8% discount rate, a copper price of $4.50 per lb. and a gold price of $3,000 per oz., Taca Taca has an after-tax net present value of $5.92 billion and an after-tax internal rate of return of 19.3%, First Quantum said late Thursday in a statement. That compares with the $2.36 billion NPV and 15.3% IRR that a March 2021 study had calculated.

“We see Taca Taca as an attractive project for First Quantum,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Matthew Murphy said Friday in a note.

Taca Taca is one of several mining projects that Argentina is counting on to lift economic output and close the gap with neighbouring Chile, the world’s leading copper producer. It would also help First Quantum, which is working to overcome the closure of the Cobre Panama copper mine, its main asset, by the Panamanian government.

Developing Taca Taca as an open-pit mine with an initial processing capacity of 40 million tonnes a year would cost about $4.2 billion, First Quantum estimates. Expanding capacity to 60 million starting in the fifth year of operation would cost an additional $1 billion. First Quantum’s 2021 study didn’t provide construction cost estimates.

Increased reserves

Located in the Puna region of Argentina’s Salta province, Taca Taca sits at an elevation of 3,500 metres, about 230 km west of the city of Salta and 55 km east of the Chilean border. No local communities live within or close to the project’s footprint.

Updated proven and probable reserves of 1.99 billion tonnes grading 0.42% copper, 0.01% molybdenum and 0.09 gram gold per tonne support an open-pit mine life of 35 years, First Quantum said. Contained metal stands at 8.43 million tonnes of copper, 244,400 tonnes molybdenum and 5.53 million oz. gold.

This represents a 13% increase in combined proven and probable reserves, a 9% rise in in-situ copper metal and a 9% climb in in-situ gold metal compared with the 2021 technical report. Mineralization remains open at depth and locally along the deposit margins to the south and east, First Quantum says.

Annual output over the first 10 years is pegged at 291,000 tonnes of copper and 133,000 oz. of gold at cash costs of 97¢ per pound. Production over the mine’s life is projected at 209,000 tonnes of copper and 96,000 oz. gold at cash costs of $1.26 per pound.

First Quantum plans to apply for financing under Argentina’s large investment incentives program, known as RIGI, over the coming months. RIGI, a creation of populist conservative President Javier Milei, is aimed at mining and energy projects with investments of more than $200 million.

“With the RIGI application deadline recently extended to July 2027, we do not anticipate material spending on this project to begin until 2028 at the earliest,” Scotia Capital mining analyst Orest Wowkodaw said Friday in a note.

Substantial value

First Quantum expects the project to receive environmental and social impact assessment approval from the Mining Secretariat in this year’s first half, following public consultation.

The updated technical study “reaffirms the substantial value and potential of the project as a major, long-life copper mine with meaningful gold production that is competitively positioned on the global cost curve,” CEO Tristan Pascall said in the statement. He called Taca Taca “one of the world’s premier undeveloped copper assets.”

First Quantum will evaluate the future sanction decision for Taca Taca “in a disciplined manner, taking into account the financing plan, the Company’s balance sheet, and the status of its other operations,” Pascall added.

Those other operations include Cobre Panama, which the company is hoping to restart after Panama’s government signalled a more accommodating stance.

“While we don’t anticipate [Taca Taca] to be sanctioned for development any time soon, and certainly not before achieving a resolution and a full restart and ramp-up at Cobre Panama, Taca Taca provides attractive medium-term copper growth optionality,” Wowkodaw said.

First Quantum shares rose 3% to C$37.48 Friday morning in Toronto, boosting the company’s market value to about C$31 billion ($22.8 billion).