Member Info for Ortherncopper

The quote of us being mine finders, not mine builders was pretty off the cuff, but the statement had intent and was seen by many as an acceptance we don’t have the resources to build a giant block cave as a small junior explorer.. with no prior mine building experience.

However, IF…, we are having no fast and clever success with a sale or JV monetisation event, we have to continue down the route of pretending we can do it ourselves… and try to plan for it..

seems to me our bluff and puff has been ignored, and we are stuck.. until Bob can prove his worth and his big words.

Not a word regarding any potential joint ventures. How much time has gone by since we announced an intention to JV regionals..

I remember Twigger standing on a stage doing a presentation waaay back.. towards the end of the presentation, he was practically begging any interested parties to get in touch.. Solg via Fawzi, even stated on multiple occasions Solg

were in Due diligence with interested parties… what happened to that??

Is no one interested? I mean surely miners are lining up to partner up with us after we have shown such dynamic progress and ability…..Or has something quite worrying put off potential partners at DD stages….

Cornerstone changed SolGolds board and picked Caldwell to run the company. Maxit Capital was the largest shareholder of Cornerstone, and its chief executive Bon Singha, was not shy of expressing what he thought of BHP and Newcrest in their approach to working with SolGold, as Mining Journal reported in late 2022 with the help of a few asterisks.

Caldwell has some bridges to build. Part of my role is to work with all our stakeholders, including shareholders, and we are trying to get a good working relationship. The relationship with BHP and Newcrest has not been the best at times. Both BHP and Newcrest voted against me on the board, which tells you what they thought about me joining,; said Caldwell.

One relationship that is likely to change anyway is that of Newcrest following its acquisition by Newmont. However, as Mining Journal reported recently, Newmont's chief executive likes Ecuador and the company's investment in Lundin Gold but did not mention its investment in SolGold. Newmont would look to realise some $2 billion in portfolio adjustments following the acquisition, leaving some to speculate that SolGold may be a position it would seek to monetise.

I have not spoken to Newmont. I want the dust to settle on the transaction with Newcrest, and we will reach out to them when the timing is appropriate. I certainly would encourage anyone to at least look at the asset before they sell the stock, just because of its size and the magnitude," said Caldwell.

And we would like to get those successfully negotiated by the end of the year said Caldwell.

It is not just Caldwell who has relocated. The accounting and IT functions will be done in the country as well as other functions, including the engineering on the feasibility study, once that resumes.

There are tax savings, and it is good for the country to spend those dollars here. We will ensure that when we resume the feasibility work, we will put it out for bid and ask that the work is done in Ecuador. Obviously, some specialists would have to be imported, but we would make sure the work was done here in country rather than offshore. It really is emulating what Lundin Gold did.

While progress has been swift, with the initial focus being a business restructuring to reduce costs and improve efficiencies, Caldwell and his team are now moving onto the most important nut to crack: how to profitably develop Cascabel.

The SolGold under Caldwell will be a very different beast than the SolGold under his predecessor Darryl Cuzzubo and company founder Nick Mather before him. Mather had visions of grandeur, such as the company becoming the next BHP, which in addition to perhaps raising the hackles of the companys biggest shareholder, BHP, saw him aim for the stars with a large block cave development with a 40-60Mtpa throughput and pre-production capital expenditure of US$2.4-2.8 billion and total capex of $10.1-10.5 billion, in a 2019 preliminary economic assessment.

Repeated delays to a prefeasibility study eroded market confidence in the company, and when it eventually came, in April 2022, it featured a more modest 25Mtpa block cave operation to produce an average of 132,000tpa of copper, 358,000ozpa of gold and 1Mozpa of silver following pre-production capital expenditure of US$2.7 billion.

First up for Caldwell is an internal study to assess the options, which Caldwell should have ready to present to the board in about three months time. If accepted, engineering work would follow before the company begins to speak publically about it.

The Cascabel deposit has some very high-grade zones inside that massive deposit. The idea would be to begin the operation by exploiting that high grade, with smaller throughput, lower capital costs and a shorter development schedule, rather than a massive block cave right out in the block. Then expanding over time to where you extract the entire resource. We dont have any numbers yet, but the preliminary indications are positive. [The capex] would be significantly less than the current capital costs, said Caldwell.

Many juniors dream of attracting partners such as BHP and Newcrest Mining. Mather brought them in and then eventually alienated them. He also alienated Cornerstone Capital Partners, a junior explorer which owned 15% of Cascabel until the two companies finally merged earlier this year, but not before Mather had twice failed in hostile takeover attempts and alienated its board and management.

Caldwell was brought in to fix a litany of fractious relationships, temper and refocus expectations and fix several other issues that had almost made SolGold untouchable despite owning a deposit endowed with one of the greatest mineral endowments in the Andes.

One of Cornerstone's criticisms of SolGold was that it was being run as a large company when it wasnt one. Caldwells first task has been to restructure the company and make it fit for purpose. Our number one focus was to optimise the organisation with the goal of reducing costs and improving efficiencies. We had key groups spread all over the world, from Brisbane, Australia, London, and, of course, here in Quito. We are really trying to move as many activities in-country [Ecuador] as we can. I moved to Quito and probably spend 80% of my time in-country. We have been successful in dramatically reducing our costs over the last six months, and with our available cash balance of US$46 million at the end of March, we'll definitely be able to carry that well into 2024,; said Caldwell. With country factors being one of the most significant risks to the development of any project, Caldwell believes the only way you can manage it is to be there. He has taken inspiration from Ron Hochstein, chief executive of Ecuador's development success story, Lundin Gold and its Fruta del Norte project.

At PDAC this year [the Prospectors and Developers Association Conference in Toronto, Canada in March] Ron spoke at the memorial for Lukas Lundin and told the story of when they were marketing in London during the early days of the company. He said a potential investor asked what makes them any different from Kinross, to which Lukas said, Ron's moving to Ecuador', which was the first time Ron had heard about it. That is when I said it is the right thing to do, and I decided to move. The person in this position needs to be in Ecuador to be involved in the day-to-day decisions and the political situation, said Caldwell.

The current political situation in Ecuador, where president Guillermo Lasso has called for new elections to escape corruption charges, makes Caldwell's relocation a prudent decision. "Based on the historical development of the mining sector, both Lundin Gold and Mirador were permitted, developed and built under previous regimes that were more liberal or left-leaning than the current president. I think the responsible mining of renewable energy minerals like copper is the future of Ecuador and that we will have the support of whoever is ruling. Responsible mining has a place in Ecuador's future, and we are going to do what we need to do said Caldwell.

A key task is to continue advancing discussions with the government about obtaining an investment protection agreement and amending the company's current investment protection agreement to reflect development and exploitation. "We are in discussions on both of those, and we would like to get those successfully nego

For fairness/balance, this is from a very left leaning publication…

but worth a post considering the garbage, playground bickering clogging up the board recently.

Lasso lost the 2017 presidential election to Lenin Moreno, but Lasso may as well have won it. Moreno ran as a loyalist to former leftwing President Rafael Correa who had been in office from 2007-2017. But as soon as Moreno took office he governed exactly as Lasso would have and immediately received the backing of Ecuador’s rightwing mass media as he launched a brutal campaign to criminalize Correa’s political movement. Running a totally fraudulent presidential campaign as Moreno did was, by itself, a grave example of democratic backsliding, but it was hailed as the opposite by western media.

Moreno illegally rammed a very deceptive referendum through by decree after he took office. He simply disregarded that the Constitutional Court must approve referendum questions. Moreno benefited from both public and private media being on the same page (vilifying Correa). Perversely, Moreno also benefited, as he had during his fraudulent presidential campaign, from the poverty and crime reduction that had taken place under Correa. The referendum took place before the impact of Moreno’s neoliberal policies could be deeply felt (and eventually made Moreno about as widely hated as Lasso is today). Thus, Moreno was able to put a cheap democratic facade on a cyclical power grab.

One of the seven unrelated referendum questions passed allowed Moreno to handpick a body (the CPCCS-T) that proceeded to act as if it were a constituent assembly that had been directly elected by voters. That Moreno would handpick the CPCCS-T was only clear if you very carefully read the annex to the question. Moreno submitted a list of 21 people to the National Assembly and it had to select seven standing and seven alternate members of the CPCCS-T from that list. And even the order in which they were listed by Moreno was important.

Moreno’s CPCCS-T was able to stack not only the judiciary but other control authorities such as prosecutors, regulators and electoral authorities. In 2019, the illegally-installed Constitutional Court judges predictably gave their blessing to actions of the CPCCS-T to whom they owed their jobs. In 2021, the Constitutional Court ruled that it was fine for Lasso to bypass the National Assembly to subject Ecuador to the World Bank’s kangaroo courts (ICSID) that are loved by multinational corporations. It’s alarming that this court will be the only real check on Lasso’s power until a new government takes office. However, the nightmare Ecuadorians have lived through in their everyday lives has proven to be the real check on what Lasso can get away with. It’s what finished him politically, and it has made Lasso’s greatest nightmare very likely to come true: the return of Correaists to power.

On May 19, Ecuador’s right wing President Lasso announced that he would not be running in the snap presidential election that was triggered when he dissolved the National Assembly days earlier. A Washington Post article, while flattering to Lasso overall, fretted that Lasso’s move might be a form of “democratic backsliding”. In fact, democratic backsliding in Ecuador has been ongoing since 2017, and it received the enthusiastic endorsement of the Washington Post’s editorial board. Since 2017, Ecuador has been governed by right wing governments that have disregarded Ecuador’s constitution, but their subservience to Washington has assured them positive coverage in western media.

Lasso’s Muerte Cruzada maneuver

On May 17, Lasso invoked article 148 of Ecuador’s constitution which allows the President to dissolve the National Assembly and trigger snap elections for both the presidency and the National Assembly. This mechanism is referred to as “Muerte Cruzada” (mutual death) because both the president and the national assembly must face voters shortly after it is used. Everyone elected in those snap elections may only finish off what is left of the electoral term. In this case, that is roughly two years. Muetre Cruzada can only be used once per four year electoral term.

The justification Lasso gave for using the Muerte Cruzada option was that there was an “internal shock” within the country – a justification that did not require prior approval from the Constitutional Court. (Other justifications would have required Constitutional Court approval according to article 148).

However, Lasso’s use of Muerte Cruzada was of dubious legality when you consider that there was a presidential impeachment process underway – one that had received Constitutional Court approval to proceed. Moreover, Lasso made it undeniably obvious that preventing impeachment was his motivation as even the Washington Post reported. Ironically, the impeachment process was underway only because Lasso and his allies blocked Muerte Cruzada from being invoked by the National Assembly last year (as it can do under article 130 of the constitution, but it failed to get the 92 votes required of the 137 member assembly). Efforts to cut short Lasso’s term through a recall referendum were also blocked by electoral authorities. Despite the very broad latitude article 148 gives the president to use Muerte Cruzada based on his or her “opinion”, it’s hardly clear that it can be used simply to halt a legally-approved impeachment process that’s already underway.

But the Constitutional Court upheld Lasso’s maneuver. That’s very unsurprising if you know that the entire Constitutional Court was illegally fired and replaced in 2018.

Anti-mining activists gave Anglo American an April 29 deadline to vacate the Pegasus copper-gold project in Ecuador's Pangua canton.

Opponents claim the miner didn’t carry out prior consultation and that most residents opposed the environment ministry's consultation. Hence, the conditions for granting the environmental licenses would not have been in place.

Fernando Benalcázar, board member of regional mining organization Olami and former deputy mines minister, expects a demonstration of power after the deadline expires, which would allow the company to declare force majeure. Activists attacked Anglo American’s camp previously.

“The mining sector in Ecuador is facing one of its worst crises since June 2022, as a result of the commitments established in the peace agreement signed with indigenous organizations,” Benalcázar told BNamericas.

To end 18 days of strikes and protests, the government promised not to grant mining concessions until a law on prior indigenous and environmental consultations is promulgated.

In November, the government issued an executive decree regulating pre-legislative consultation, a prior step to environmental consultation, but in March, indigenous organizations asked the constitutional court to nix the decree.

"The situation is very serious. If that request is granted, the entire industry will stop due to the lack of environmental licenses, not just the mining industry," Benalcázar said.

According to the mining chamber, at least 100 environmental licenses are on hold across all sectors.

Pressure groups are planning countrywide actions on June 5 to demand authorities declare their territories free of mining.

After talks in January, the head of indigenous confederation Conaie, Leonidas Iza, said the organization will stop the advance of camps and machinery across the country.

You may still have a chance to re enter at a lower price Bubble...

“SolGold plans to provide an update as the various value-adding options are evaluated, and a clearer picture of the future direction of the studies and timeframes emerges,” the company has said in its management discussion and analysis accompanying its 2023 third-quarter report.

Regarding the ongoing strategic review, SolGold continues to evaluate financing alternatives, including potentially spinning out non-Cascabel assets.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants

Mining Plus (mineral resources and reserves estimates); Knight Piésold (environment, social, tailings and water studies); Wood (metallurgy, process plant and infrastructure, as well as financial evaluation); and Wood Mackenzie (marketing).

Location

Northern Ecuador.

Project Owner/s

Exploraciones Novomining, an 85%-owned subsidiary of SolGold.

Project Description

A prefeasibility study (PFS) has concluded that Cascabel has the potential to be a large, low-cost and long-life mining operation based on achievable, proven and tested mining and processing assumptions.

The mine is expected to produce a clean copper/gold/silver concentrate, to be sold to Asian and European smelters as part of a project construction financing package.

The project has an initial mineral reserve of 558-million tonnes containing 3.3-million tonnes of copper grading 0.58%, 9.4-million ounces of gold grading 0.52 g/t, and 30-million ounces of silver grading 1.65 g/t over an initial 26-year life-of-mine (LoM), with a potential LoM upside of more than 50 years following the initial LoM.

Access to the Alpala underground mine is expected to be through twin declines, starting from a boxcut near the surface and the first lift near the 300mRL. Block cave mining will be applied to the underground resource while all horizontal development will be undertaken using conventional drill-and-blast methods. The vertical development for the main ventilation rises will be excavated using blind sinking methods.

The crushed ore from the underground primary crushers will be conveyed to the surface and fed to the secondary crushing circuit. The product from the secondary crushing area will be transferred to the fine ore stockpile, and subsequently reclaimed to the high-pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) circuit.

The product from the HPGR circuit will be transferred to a grinding circuit comprising ball mills, each operating in closed circuit with a hydrocyclone cluster.

The project is initially expected to produce about 132 000 t/y of copper, 358 000 oz/y of gold and one-million ounces of silver (212 000 t/y copper equivalent), with peak copper production of 210 000 t/y (319 000 t/y copper equivalent).

Potential Job Creation

Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return

The project has an estimated pretax net present value, at an 8% discount rate, of $5.2-billion and an internal rate of return of 25.3%, with a payback of 4.7 years from the start of operations.

Capital Expenditure

$2.7-billion for the initial cave development, first process plant module and infrastructure.

Planned Start/End Date

Not stated.

Latest Developments

SolGold is evaluating a phased approach to the development of the Cascabel project to reduce upfront capital and shorten the development schedule.

It has also deferred the Cascabel definitive feasibility study, owing to the fluidity of the current capital cost landscape and the ongoing assessment of value-enhancing opportunities.

The company is prioritising capital allocation as part of a reorganisation plan, which aims to reduce costs and headcount, to preserve financial resources while derisking Cascabel.

To be fair Bozi, if we had flipped it… let’s say around the time BHP were happy to pay 45p for a small stake, we would not have been rueing the lost opportunity cost of sticking with it for the last circa 5 years since then, hoping for transformational growth

Reuters) - Ecuador could hold early legislative and presidential elections on Aug. 20, the electoral court said on Thursday, a day after President Guillermo Lasso dissolved the National Assembly by decree and brought forward the vote scheduled for 2025.

Lasso invoked the constitution's so-called "two-way death" provision on Wednesday, which allows the president to call elections for both his post and the assembly under certain circumstances, including if actions by the legislature are blocking the functioning of government.

The embattled leader cited Ecuador's serious political crisis and domestic turmoil as reasons for making the move.

Lasso faces an impeachment attempt by opposition politicians over accusations he disregarded warnings of embezzlement related to a contract at state-owned oil transportation company Flopec. He has denied the accusations.

Lasso will remain in office and govern by decree until his successor and a new legislature are elected, according to the constitution.

The head of Ecuador's electoral council, Diana Atamaint, told local channel Teleamazonas the vote will be set for Sunday, Aug. 20, according to a preliminary timetable and in compliance with local laws, adding the date must be approved by the full court.

If there is a run-off election for president, it could be held on Oct. 15, Atamaint said.

Opposition lawmakers are hoping the Constitutional Court, Ecuador's highest court, will rule quickly to block Lasso's dissolution, which they have described as illegal.

Lawmakers of the dissolved National Assembly said they will respect the court's decision, even if it upholds the president's actions.

"There is a fairly high probability that the decree will be declared unconstitutional and that the Assembly will return to its duties and go back to the impeachment (of Lasso)," said opposition politician Esteban Torres.

some posters here have their head buried so deep… they simply refuse to see… they will continue to claim that despite the ****e it all smells of roses.. and a few will try to reason to themselves it could even be a positive development

The direction of the company has not changed… I agree. I don’t believe we will test new lows.

However with the SR no where in sight, and no exploration taking place, there seems no positive, share price increasing news on the horizon any time soon.

Solg will probably just continue to drift lower, as is traditional on no news… and certainly on uncertainty surrounding the Ecuador government.

However you choose to look at things unfolding over there…. It’s not value enhancing, or sending any positive signal to anyone Solg wish to pull in to a multi billion dollar monetising event that would need government approvals. Political stability is needed for that.

Ecuador-focused SolGold (LSE: SOLG) is considering a phased approach to the development of its flagship Cascabel copper-gold project in the Andean country as a way to reduce upfront capital and construction time.

The company, which merged last year with Cornerstone Capital Resources to consolidate 100% ownership of Cascabel, also said it had deferred the definitive feasibility study for the project and Porvenir’s preliminary economic assessment.

Porvenir is a copper-gold deposit located about 100 km north of the Ecuador-Peru border and 100 km south of the Fruta Del Norte deposit held by Lundin Gold (TSX: LUG).

The announcement, included in SolGold’s March quarter results, also said the company was negotiating access rights and ownership for the mine’s proposed tailings. All other project work will focus on obtaining permits and agreements to allow for development.

“SolGold plans to provide an update as the various value-adding options are evaluated and a clearer picture of the future direction of the studies and timeframes emerges,” the miner said.

SolGold approached Ecuador’s Ministry of Energy and Mines in August 2022 to begin negotiations for an exploitation agreement for Cascabel.

The company says it expects the contract to be finalized before year-end.

SolGold noted that as part of the announced project evaluation, it is looking into a range of financing and strategic options to secure additional funding, including selling a direct or indirect stake in Cascabel, divesting other assets or other transactions.

The miner ended the quarter with a cash balance of $48.1 million plus $25.4 million of shares held. It said management expects current cash balances to last beyond June 2024.

Losing Newcrest

SolGold faces the possibility of losing Newcrest Mining (ASX: NCM), one of its top investors, within the next couple of years if Newmont (TSX: NGT; NYSE: NEM) succeeds in its takeover of the Australian miner and brings those assets into the fold.

Newmont said on Monday it would seek to generate $2 billion cash in portfolio savings, including selling non-core assets, with the transaction.

Newcrest’s 10.3% stake in SolGold could be one of the positions the U.S. gold giant may seek to divest.

The Cascabel project, located in the Imbabura province of northwest Ecuador, is one of the most ambitious mining projects in a country that is keen to develop mineral resources to spur its sluggish economy.

According to the pre-feasibility study published in April last year, annual production will average 132,000 tonnes of copper, 358,000 oz. of gold and 1 million oz. of silver during Cascabel’s 55-year mine life.

This means the asset has the potential to become one of the 20 largest copper-gold mines in South America.

It’s estimated that the global copper industry needs to spend more than $100 billion to build mines able to close what could be an annual supply deficit of 4.7 million tonnes by 2030.

That is an unfortunate name considering how many words starting with Ju are pronounced in Latin American countries…. Apt even…

We have enough cash to ride until June 2024... as long as we do absolutely nothing... and just hope Bob can get something done.. What a business plan!!

I'm sure no one here, just a couple of years ago, would have thought Cornerstone Group would be in control, and all our hopes for any pay day are with their friends...

3. nothing has changed.

The team is less open.. and the team are as clear as mud.

and chances of a quick sale are diminishing... its looking more like the Bozi solution of spin out... or plead with someone to do a JV.

Our financial and exploration commitments as well as deadlines across our tenements remain.. Yet we are mothballed until the SR is completed. (I can not see it being completed by July)

As has already been said, there is no exploration happening, regional or Cascabel... we have enough cash, to last us to next summer, as long as we do nothing..... nothing at all..

How did the promising exploration company I invested in, with what was then, just an exciting, potential tier one find, end up in this position??

Any interested parties know they have us over a barrel in any negotiations.. Many and me, have said in the past BHP seem to have lost all interest in Cascabel..... but maybe they are simply hoping to pick up the tenement from the Ecuador government themselves if Solgold can not meet the decision to mine deadline.. as set out in the tenement contract.

This is all very concerning.. whatever direction is announced post SR, the big bonanza payout we had all hoped for years ago seems to have evaporated.

Bubble may get 32p instead of £1.32