SW US Spotlight 2: Rio, Teck, Newmont back juniors

Three major miners are backing junior explorers advancing copper projects in the U.S. Southwest, while a fourth company is pushing to become a domestic antimony and gold producer.

Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) holds a stake in Intrepid Metals (TSXV: INTR; US-OTC: IMTCF), Rio Tinto’s (NYSE, LSE, ASX: RIO) Nuton is funding Lion Copper & Gold’s (CSE: LEO; US-OTC: LCGMF) Yerington project and Newmont (TSX: NGT; NYSE, ASX: NEM) owns 9.2% of Metallic Minerals (TSXV: MMG; US-OTC: MMNGF).

NevGold (TSXV: NAU; US-OTC: NAUFF), meanwhile, is studying an accelerated route to antimony production in Nevada.

Intrepid Metals

Intrepid Metals is exploring its pre-resource Corral copper property in southeastern Arizona with backing from Teck Resources, which owns 9.9% of the junior.

Intrepid acquired Corral in 2023 for its potential to host near-surface carbonate-replacement copper-gold-silver mineralization and a related porphyry copper-gold system.

The geological model draws comparisons with Arizona’s historic Bisbee copper camp about 100 km southeast, where high-grade carbonate-replacement mineralization occurs alongside the Lavender Pit porphyry deposit.

Intrepid identified a new porphyry target called Curly in July and plans 10,000 metres of drilling starting in September, split between porphyry targets and previously identified carbonate-replacement mineralization.

Last year, hole CC25-040 at the Clanton zone returned 71.7 metres grading 0.8% copper, 0.1 gram gold per tonne, 5.35 grams silver and 0.46% zinc from 47.2 metres depth. That included 24.35 metres grading 2.19% copper, 0.17 gram gold, 11.59 grams silver and 1.05% zinc.

Intrepid also holds projects elsewhere in Arizona and has a market capitalization of $97.6 million.

Lion Copper & Gold

Lion Copper & Gold is advancing the Yerington copper project in Nevada, which includes the past-producing Yerington and MacArthur mines about 113 km southeast of Reno.

Rio Tinto’s Nuton division is funding the project under an option to earn 65%. Nuton has developed proprietary leaching technologies intended to recover copper from primary sulphide resources.

Lion aims to complete a definitive feasibility study in the first quarter of next year and is targeting first production in the first half of 2030.

A prefeasibility study last year outlined average annual output of 120 million lb. refined copper cathode over a 12-year mine life, with all-in sustaining costs estimated at $2.67 per pound.

The study put post-tax NPV at $694 million (C$968 million), using a 7% discount rate and $4.30 per lb. copper, with a 15% IRR. Initial capital was estimated at $724 million.

Yerington has 459.5 million proven and probable tonnes grading 0.21% total copper for 2.14 billion contained lb. copper.

Lion added considerably to the project’s inventory in August with an initial resource at Bear, which contains about 1 billion indicated tonnes grading 0.29% copper for 6.7 billion lb., plus 1.7 billion inferred tonnes grading 0.22% copper for 8.7 billion pounds.

Lion Copper & Gold has a market capitalization of about C$116 million.

Metallic Minerals

Metallic Minerals is advancing its La Plata copper-silver-gold-PGE project in southwestern Colorado.

An updated resource this year at the Allard porphyry deposit outlined 181.4 million inferred tonnes grading 0.33% copper and 2.9 grams silver for 1.3 billion lb. copper and 17 million oz. silver.

A 45.4-million-tonne subset also contains platinum, palladium and gold, grading 0.06 gram platinum, 0.08 gram palladium and 0.04 gram gold for 91,000 oz. platinum, 121,000 oz. palladium and 60,000 oz. gold.

Metallic has identified 16 untested potential porphyry centres across the 44-sq.-km property, which lies at the southwest end of the Colorado Mineral Belt.

La Plata was selected in July as one of two test systems for a U.S. Department of Energy-funded program developing AI-assisted critical-minerals exploration technology.

Newmont has been a strategic shareholder since 2023 and owns 9.2% of Metallic.

The junior has a market capitalization of $60.1 million.

NevGold

NevGold plans to become a U.S. producer of antimony and gold from its Limousine Butte project in eastern Nevada.

The 70-sq.-km brownfield project, about 80 km north of Ely, hosted the Golden Butte open-pit heap-leach operation in the late 1980s.

NevGold released the first resource at Limousine Butte in more than 17 years in July. Measured and indicated resources total 15.2 million tonnes grading 0.37 gram gold, 1.15 grams silver and 0.21% antimony for 181,400 oz. gold, 562,200 oz. silver and 31,800 tonnes antimony.

Inferred resources add 117.5 million tonnes grading 0.32 gram gold, 0.61 gram silver and 0.09% antimony for 1.2 million oz. gold, 1.69 million oz. silver and 75,700 tonnes antimony.

NevGold plans 20,000 metres of drilling this year focused on converting and expanding resources and following up the high-grade Bullet Zone and Armory Fault discoveries.

The company is also considering an accelerated route to production by processing material from historic leach pads before moving towards larger-scale commercial mining and processing in 2029-30.

NevGold has a market capitalization of $322.8 million.