North American interest in explorers listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is witnessing a reawakening, with more investment dollars starting to flow into the juniors.
Kincora Copper (ASX:KCC) CEO Sam Spring tells Mining.com.au that the junior explorer, which is also listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange’s secondary Venture Exchange, has not marketed into North America since COVID hit in 2020.
However, the North American funding pipeline appeared to start opening up to Kincora after the company announced its second partnership with AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU) in April this year.
“It was still a work in progress until we got that second AngloGold Ashanti deal over the line in April,” Spring explains on the sidelines of the Noosa Mining Investor Conference.
“Then we had that shareholder overhang that only filtered its way out through to May, and only in mid-May was that the right time that we could get in the front to really re-engage with the North American market.”
That led to prominent North American investors Rick Rule and Jeff Phillips becoming key cornerstone investors in Kincora’s C$4 million ($4.5 million) private placement.
Rule is an over 50-year veteran investor and speculator, focused on resources companies with a sub-US$1 billion ($1.5 billion) market capitalisation.
He has structured, led and participated in hundreds of privately placed debt and equity issuances for resources companies operating internationally, and domiciled in Australia, Canada, Chile, UK, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the US.
In 1990, Rule founded Sprott US Holdings, merging it into Sprott Inc in 2011.
As part of the investment deal, Rule requested a one-year hold period on the placement units.
“What we tried to do was look at what we’ve got in the portfolio, the deals we’ve already done today, the results that we’ve got, what that inherent value should be, and then try and get the structure to a deal to align to,” Spring notes.
“I’d like to think that the 12-month hold period on the stock, the accelerator on the warrants, the strike price on the warrants, the rollback of the shares all reflects this strategy of trying to get the runway to reflect what the inherent value of the business today is.
“I guess what caught their attention was really the valuation of the opportunity and the inherent value that was already in the portfolio and not being recognised. I think it definitely puts us back on the radar.”
Kincora has adopted the prospect generator model, which has proven successful in Canada and provides juniors leverage to exploration success with the right partner and deal structure.
The company has secured asset-level partnerships with US$25.5 billion ($38.7 billion) AngloGold Ashanti, Fleet Space Technologies, Earth AI, and Orbminco (ASX:OB1) that unlocks over $110 million of potential funding.
Genie out of bottle
Spring says with US President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that he will impose 50% tariffs on copper imports to the US, that “genie is now out of the bottle” for the North American investor.
“They’re realising just how critical copper is as a critical mineral, regardless of the tariffs,” he says.
“I think that secular change of money coming to hard assets, that trend will accelerate in North America.”
Meanwhile, Nevada-focused Astute Metals (ASX:ASE) – which now has a dual focus on gold and lithium – is also witnessing rising North American investor interest, according to CEO Matt Healy.
“I think with the recent uptick in the lithium price, there’s definitely a bit more interest coming in for lithium,” he tells Mining.com.au.
“Also being in the US, it’s very clear that the Americans want to establish their own critical minerals supply chains.
“If you look at the amount of capital raising done for ASX companies that have recently taken on not just Nevada projects, but US projects more generally, there’s a lot of capital from the US for mining. It’s this whole reduced permitting time frames, drill baby drill.”
Healy was over in the US in October last year and again in April this year and he says it was like “chalk and cheese”.
“There’s a real sense of optimism in the industry over there now,” he notes.
“Just in the last few weeks, I’ve had cold emails coming in from brokers and investors out of the US, actually just looking to find out more about what we’re doing.”
Astute says exploration results received from the Red Mountain Lithium Project to date have confirmed its potential to become one of the highest-grade lithium clay projects in the US.
The US currently produces just 5,000 tonnes per annum of lithium – as lithium carbonate equivalent, while domestic lithium consumption is forecast to reach 259,000 tonnes per annum by 2027.
The company today (25 July) released the final batch of drill results, with one hole intersecting 170.4m of lithium mineralisation across six zones. Top results featured 62.4m @ 1,210 parts per million (ppm) lithium from 152.2m, including 27m @ 1,420ppm from 176.7m.
The results confirm wide zones of lithium mineralisation in the south of the project and advances Red Mountain closer to a maiden resource.
Astute is now planning a drilling campaign to support an initial resource by the end of 2025.
The company also recently undertook a fresh technical assessment of the Needles Gold Project looking over more than 20 years of historical exploration results and identifying a number of walk-up drill targets including those bearing “high-grade” gold and silver rock chips with no previous drill testing.
Astute says the relatively recent 16-million-ounce Silicon-Merlin gold discovery by AngloGold Ashanti in Nevada has highlighted the potential for major epithermal gold discoveries in the region.
Mining.com.au has been an official media partner of the Noosa Mining Investor Conference this year.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Kincora Copper & Astute Metals
