Canada’s Marimaca Copper (TSX: MARI) kicked off this week the process to dual list on the Australian Securities Exchange, a strategic move to boost growth and access to capital as it advances its flagship copper project in Chile.
The company has reportedly engaged law firm Thomson Geer to finalize a prospectus for listing in the ASX before Christmas. According to the Australian Financial Review, Marimaca doesn’t plan to appoint brokers until the March quarter.
While the company has ruled out an immediate need for an equity raise, one of the key motivations for seeking a listing in Australia is to tap into the institutional capital supporting ASX-listed entities.
Marimaca may be following in the footsteps of fellow Canadian miner Capstone Copper (TSX: CS) (ASX: CSC), which earlier this year successfully executed a dual listing. The strategic move allowed Capstone’s private equity backer, Orion, to offload A$593 million ($387m) through a block trade aimed at Australian investors.
The dual-listing move aligns with Marimaca’s efforts to advance a definitive feasibility study (DFS) for its flagship project — its namesake Marimaca copper asset in Chile’s Antofagasta region.
The project is hailed as one of the most significant copper oxide discoveries in Chile in the past decade, with the potential to become a low-capital-cost, high-margin operation, according to the company’s president and chief executive Hayden Locke.
The Vancouver-based miner has been expanding its presence in the Chilean copper sector in recent weeks, while is progressing with Marimaca’s DFS, expected to be completed before year-end.
Since discovering the Marimaca deposit in 2016, the company has more than doubled its resources. The latest estimate indicates 200 million tonnes of measured and indicated resources grading 0.45% copper, containing 900,000 tonnes of metal, alongside an inferred resource of 37 million tonnes grading 0.38% copper for 141,000 tonnes.
The open-pit, heap-leach project is designed to produce 40,000 tonnes of copper cathodes annually during its first six years of operation, beginning in 2028. Over the 12-year mine life, the total recovered copper is estimated at 430,000 tonnes.
A 2022 Preliminary Economic Assessment highlighted Marimaca’s competitive edge, with operating costs in the bottom 15% of the all-in sustaining cost curve at $1.29 per pound of copper. This low cost provides a cash margin of 65% based on a copper price of $3.70 per pound. The project’s low-carbon intensity production prospects have also attracted notable investments.
Mitsubishi Corporation acquired a 5% equity stake in Marimaca last June, citing the project’s sustainable production attributes. In July, South Africa’s Assore Group followed suit, investing C$68 million ($44m) in the company.
Investor have taken note of Maricama. Its shares have surged almost 50% this year, boosting the miner’s market capitalization to C$515.2 million ($369m).
