Interview with Hayden Locke, President & CEO of Marimaca Copper Corp.

Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/marimaca-copper-tsxmari-environmental-milestone-clears-path-for-q1-2026-ground-breaking-8471

Recording date: 14th November 2025

Marimaca Copper is advancing its Pampa Medina project in northern Chile with drill results that significantly exceed expectations and confirm the potential scale of a sedimentary-hosted copper system. The latest intercepts include nearly 50 meters at 2% copper within a broader 160-meter zone grading 1% copper, representing a material extension to the oxide envelope with grades surpassing current resource models.

The company's aggressive exploration strategy has delivered impressive results from long-distance stepout drilling. Holes positioned 900 meters south of known mineralization successfully intersected the same sedimentary horizon, encountering zones of 20 to 40 meters at 1.5% copper. According to CEO Hayden Locke, these results were "thicker higher grade zones than we were expecting in that area where we thought it was going to be thinning," prompting continued drilling in multiple directions.

Marimaca is executing a 30,000-meter drill program split between aggressive 300-meter-spaced stepouts to define deposit limits and tighter infill drilling to establish grade continuity. The approach reflects confidence that sedimentary-hosted copper systems "tend to be laterally and regionally quite extensive," with early results suggesting mineralization across a basin spanning multiple kilometers.

Perhaps most significantly, geological review has prompted a fundamental reassessment of the deposit's development potential. The mineralized sedimentary horizon averages over 200 meters thickness with consistent grades, leading management to reconsider what was previously viewed as an underground-only opportunity. The identification of lower-grade material in halos around high-grade cores suggests potential for large-tonnage open-pit development, fundamentally expanding the project's scale.

The oxide resource, originally expected to add 20,000 tons of annual copper production, now appears poised to deliver "significantly more than that" according to Locke. The company is targeting release of a standalone Preliminary Economic Assessment by December 2025, which will provide initial economics for the oxide opportunity while sulfide potential continues to be evaluated through ongoing exploration.

View Marimaca Copper's company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/marimaca-copper

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