TNR Gold reveals new McEwen Copper $80M funding round for Los Azules Copper project in Argentina

TNR Gold Corp.(CVE:TNR) (OTCMKTS:TRRXF) (FRA:TNW), a green energy metals royalty and gold company, said that McEwen Mining Inc has created McEwen Copper Inc and is initiating a private placement of up to US$80 million to advance its Los Azules Copper project in Argentina. 

TNR Gold holds a 0.36% net smelter return (NSR) royalty on the entire Los Azules project containing copper, gold, and silver metals. TNR Gold does not have to contribute any capital for the development of the Los Azules Copper project. 

The royalty company said McEwen Copper intends to pursue an initial public listing within 12 months from the closing of the offering. 

READ: TNR Gold announces new $250,000 offering to fund work at its Shotgun gold project in Alaska

“Proceeds from the offering will be used exclusively by McEwen Copper to advance the Los Azules Copper Project to a pre-feasibility study, to construct a new year-round access road to the project, carry out exploration drilling at Los Azules, and to complete environmental permitting and community relations,” said the company.

In a statement, McEwen’s chairman and main owner Rob McEwen said: “This is a significant and exciting moment for McEwen Mining because of the value it should release. Currently, the market appears to be giving us little value for our Los Azules copper deposit, despite its impressive size and robust economics at present copper prices.”

“Unfortunately, the scale of the required project development expenditures would require McEwen Mining to issue a massive number of additional shares. This share dilution would not be acceptable. However, we believe that by putting our copper assets, Los Azules and Elder Creek, into a separately listed company exclusively focused on copper, we can create an attractive copper investment vehicle.”

He said the move would allow the company to raise the money necessary to fund progress towards “the rapid development of one of the world’s largest copper resources.”

“We expect that McEwen Copper will compare very favorably to other single-asset copper developers,” said McEwen. “Within 12 months of closing this offering, we plan to take the company public.”

The Los Azules Copper project is an advanced large-scale porphyry copper exploration project located in the prolific Andean Cordillera copper belt, 56 miles (90km) north of Glencore’s El Pachón project and near the border with Chile. In 2017, McEwen Mining completed a positive Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the project.

“I am very pleased to see this very exciting and significant development for the Los Azules Copper project and personal support by Rob McEwen of the newly created McEwen Copper,” said Kirill Klip, the executive chair for TNR. “The essence of our business model is to have industry leaders like McEwen Mining as operators on the projects that will potentially generate royalty cashflows to contribute significant value for our shareholders.”

Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]

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