Diving into 2026, Lodestar Minerals’ (ASX:LSR) Executive Chairman Ross Taylor told Mining.com.au that the copper market is “structurally tight with declining global grades and emerging supply gaps driving long-term optimism”.
“It is exactly the kind of market where high-quality early-stage projects can rapidly re-rate,” Taylor says.
Ahead of 2026, copper futures fell over 1% in the last session of 2025. Regardless of this decline, the base metal is on track to hit its largest annual gain since 2009, according to Trading Economics.
At time of publishing, copper was marked at US$5.94 per pound, returning a 44.3% increase over the past year.
Copper reached its highest trading point of last year in mid-July, hitting US$5.81 ($8.68) per pound before quickly retreating to US$4.41 in early August.
Lodestar is a copper-focused mineral explorer that has staked assets in three differing geological locations. The company is currently uncovering gold and base metals in Western Australia, rare earths in the US, as well copper and gold in Chile.
Speaking about Lodestar’s key focus and newsflow in 2026, Taylor explains that its Chilean portfolio will see a clear escalation in its technical and operational activity.
This includes refining priority targets, potential geophysical programs, drilling preparations, and updates as the company progresses exploration campaigns.
“The next six months will be milestone-rich as we move into active discovery work on multiple fronts,” Taylor tells this news service.
Just before the end of 2025, Lodestar shared that it had decided to not exercise its option for the Darwin Project in Chile, leaving the company to focus on its remaining Chilean asset, the Three Saints Project.
Three Saints lies adjacent to the Darwin Project, located amongst numerous copper deposits and gold-rich iron oxide gold-copper deposits in Chile including the Candelaria deposit, which hosts 1.2 billion tonnes @ 0.60% copper, 0.13 grams per tonne gold, and 2.0g/t silver.
Taylor explains that Chile holds an interesting mining jurisdiction for its range of large-scale public and private explorers, as well as small scale private groups, though “no local public juniors”.
“There are a number of foreign juniors taking advantage of this gap in the market but very few hold early stage copper-gold projects with district-scale potential that sit in the same structural corridors as major mines,” Taylor tells this news service.
“Lodestar’s competitive advantage is that our footprint and targets sit in a tier-one jurisdiction with exceptional geological pedigree, yet remains underexplored by modern standards.
“Compared with peers, we operate with a highly technical team, disciplined capital management, and a focus on generating targets that appeal not just to investors, but to potential mid-tier and major partners.”
Lodestar Minerals is an active base metals and gold explorer focused on its project portfolio in Chile and Western Australia.
Write to Maddison Elliott at Mining.com.au
Images: Lodestar Minerals
