Marimaca Copper (ASX:MC2) is formally assessing funding partners for the development of its namesake project located in Chile, as it continues advancing toward a final investment decision.
Speaking to Mining.com.au, CEO Hayden Locke says the company has received the first round of proposals, which are considered “really good, one of the best requests for proposals for debt financing I have been involved with”.
“There’s a lot of work to do — we’ve got to go through the full DD process with all of the financing partners that we will take through to the second round, which is a lot of work” Locke tells this news service.
“At this stage, we feel very happy and quite comfortable that we’ll be able to finance it ourselves.
“In copper, the cupboards are quite bare for projects of meaningful scale that can be financed, standalone, by the company that owns them. Most of them require a major partner to come in and support the financing.”
In May 2026, the company’s independent debt advisor Endeavour Financial began a debt financing process. Endeavour has been engaging with a broad range of potential financing partners to support the development and construction of the Marimaca oxide deposit.
The Marimaca Project has a low capital intensity, high margin, and compelling near-mine and satellite resource expansion opportunity.
A 2025 Definitive Feasibility Study highlighted that the project has a post-tax net present value of US$1.1 billion ($1.6 billion) and an internal rate of return of 39%. Marimaca also has a pre-production capex of US$587 million, with a production target of 50,000 tonnes per year over a 13-year mine life.
Locke explains that a positive factor about the Marimaca oxide deposit is that it does not require leverage to juice the returns, which he says is a “nice position to be in” as it means the company can be more conservative as it enters the next phase of work.
“On the equity side, we’re very fortunate that we have two very large shareholders with significant minority stakes, both of whom have more than enough money to finance the whole of the construction themselves,” the CEO says.
Marimaca’s end product
Marimaca Copper aims to be in construction in 2027 and producing copper cathode in 2028–29.
Following environmental approval in November 2025, Marimaca submitted the project’s critical sectorial permits in April 2026.
The submitted permits include the closure plan, open pit mining method, and several additional approvals required for the construction of core project infrastructure. This includes the crushing plant, leaching pads, and waste and ripios storage facilities.
Approvals for these permits are expected in Q4 2026.
Locke says one of the key differences with the Marimaca Project in comparison to other copper assets is that it is producing copper cathode.
“We’re producing the end product, so our energy consumption and carbon emissions per pound of copper produced is in the bottom decile of the industry based on a Wood Mackenzie report that we commissioned several years ago,” he says.
“We also benefit from the Chilean power generation landscape in the Atacama region, which has significant solar supply.”
The Marimaca Project also has the added benefit of being located in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, where a significant proportion of energy comes from solar.
“And that is not solar we are installing ourselves, that’s grid-supplied solar electricity,” Locke notes.
“Under the terms of our power purchase agreement, which we’ll be signing in the near future, we have 100% green electricity and 100% renewable electricity for our project.”
Marimaca Copper is a dual-listed copper company. The company’s flagship Marimaca Project lies in Chile’s Antofagasta region and is one of the few greenfield copper discoveries made globally in the past decade.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Marimaca Copper
