Interview with Hayden Locke, President & CEO of Marimaca Copper

Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/marimaca-copper-tsxmari-de-risked-chilean-copper-developer-on-the-fast-track-to-production-6720

Recording date: 12th May 2025

Marimaca Copper is making substantial progress on two fronts in northern Chile's prolific copper belt. The company is finalizing the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for its flagship Marimaca oxide project while simultaneously uncovering exciting exploration results at the nearby Pampa Medina project.

Recent drilling at Pampa Medina has revealed a potentially transformative discovery with two stacked manttos (horizontal ore bodies) showing different styles of mineralization. The upper zone intersected approximately 80 meters at over 1.2% copper, including a higher-grade section exceeding 20 meters at roughly 2.5%. More significantly, deeper drilling encountered substantial visual bornite and chalcopyrite mineralization in the lower 300 meters, with assays pending.

"We now think that Pampa Medina has the potential to nearly double in size if there's continuous mineralization between the current Pampa Medina manto horizon out to the Pampa Medina Norte extension," explained Hayden Lock, President and CEO of Marimaca Copper. This expansion could substantially increase the strike length of the deposit. The mineralization bears similarities to Antofagasta's Cachuro discovery, which boasts a resource exceeding 300 million tons at over 1% copper.

Marimaca is pursuing a pragmatic hub-and-spoke development strategy, with the flagship Marimaca oxide project serving as the central processing facility for multiple satellite deposits, including Pampa Medina and Madrugador. This approach aims to maximize capital efficiency while providing a clear path to significant production scale.

The exploration success could significantly enhance the company's production profile. Current development plans target approximately 50,000 tons of copper annually from the Marimaca oxide project. However, integrating the satellite deposits could increase production to 70,000-75,000 tons, which would make Marimaca Copper the sixth largest copper project on the ASX according to Lock.

Internal assessments suggest Madrugador and Pampa Medina together could contribute 20,000-25,000 tons annually for 13-14 years, even without additional exploration success. The company has commissioned an integration study from Stantec to validate the economic benefits of incorporating these satellite deposits into the development plan.

Initial metallurgical indications for the Pampa Medina oxide material are encouraging, with data suggesting high acid solubility and potentially better recoveries than at the flagship Marimaca project. The company is balancing aggressive exploration ambitions with pragmatic capital management, focusing immediate drilling efforts on connecting the Pampa Medina Norte extension with the main deposit while conducting select deeper holes to test sulfide potential.

For investors, Marimaca offers exposure to a copper development story with multiple near-term catalysts, including the completion of the DFS for the flagship project, pending assay results from deep drilling, and the integration study results. The company's advancing development timeline coincides with a period of favorable copper market fundamentals, characterized by accelerating demand and constrained supply growth.

Marimaca's progress toward production, combined with its expanding resource potential, positions it as an increasingly significant player in the copper development landscape.

Learn more: https://cruxinvestor.com/companies/marimaca-copper

Sign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com