JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The revenue of South Africa’s quickly advancing Northern Cape copper mining company Copper 360, the only pure copper play on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, is forecast by the company to have risen sharply by the end of February next year.

The AltX-listed company headed by CEO Jan Nelson, is guiding revenue of R1.2-billion to R1.9-billion at the end of February next year, from the R38.2-million revenue level generated in the 12 months to the end of February this year.  (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The second half of this year had seen an increase in volume, grade and recoveries, the project build completed and capital secured, Nelson pointed out at Tuesday’s presentation of results.

The company is guiding the copper price will be between $10 000/t and $12 000/t for the next 12 months and all-in sustaining costs at $4 500/t to $5 600/t and is forecasting production of 450 000 t to 750 000 t for the coming year.

Grade is expected to be from 1.1% to 2% copper and production from 6 500 t to 10 000 t in this financial year

“We have now established all the work we have to do in terms of production, capital spend and that will take us to our guided revenue level, and I think that’s a significant turnaround,” Nelson said.

“We’ve laid the foundation, we have adequate capital in the bank, our operations are busy generating positive cash flow, and this has placed us on a different trajectory, and I think that’s what these financial results are all about.

“For the period, it was about finishing the projects, establishing ourselves and putting ourselves in a strong position to be able to deliver."

Copper concentrate processing capacity is double what was planned for the period and copper concentration offtake has been secured under what are described as very favourable economic terms.

The company met its objectives of achieving a market capitalisation of R3-billion.

Three operating plants are providing operational flexibility and two hauling contractors are getting multiple sources of rock to the processing facilities.

A second contract mobile crusher has been secured as a backup to a mobile cone crusher acquired during the last financial year for R15-million.

Four new engineers have been appointed to drive scheduled maintenance and critical spares have been increased to lower operational downtime.

Yearly copper-producing capability will be increased from 12 000 t at the end of February next year to 20 000 t in 2026 and 50 000 t in February 2027.

A measured and indicted maiden resource of 4.78-million tonnes at 1.27% copper totalling 60 800 t of copper metal has been declared at the Rietberg copper mine.

An in-house training facility is supporting the increasing employee complement, which will be rising from the present 300 employees to an estimated 800 employees.

Planned for the 2026 and 2027 financial years are a 15 MVA solar farm followed by a 30 MVA wind farm as well as the establishment of Agri 360.

MARKET MANIPULATION

Requested to clarify issues around market manipulation during question time, Nelson said Copper 360 unfortunately had a situation of people shorting Copper 360 stock.

“We are currently in the process of instituting legal action and we will make this information available to the market in due course.

“We do have a duty to our shareholders to protect the company when we see that there is market manipulation that is against the law. We will not tolerate illegal manipulation of our share price. This is a specific incident and we’ll provide more clarity on the issue,” said Nelson.