Graham Richardson

Faraday Copper – Business Combination Of San Manuel w/ Copper Creek Accelerates Development Pathway

• Top takeaway Argues the staged combination of San Manuel and Copper Creek — cathode first from private-land oxide, then open-pit sulphides, then the Kalamazoo and Copper Creek undergrounds — centralizes infrastructure and accelerates US cathode production relative to either asset standalone.
• Presents the combined inventory as roughly 18 billion pounds of copper, with Kalamazoo's historic 400-600 million tons at about 0.65% copper seen as fairly de-risked given over 440,000 meters of prior drilling, pending confirmation drilling.
• Says selling the company is an outcome, not a strategy: the plan is to staff up in Arizona, advance to a construction decision and production, and fund the low-initial-capital Phase 1 with project financing at a roughly $2 billion market cap.
• Maintains the first economic study should cover only the San Manuel oxide plus Copper Creek open pits, calling that scope investable and avoiding years of equity-funded study on the undergrounds.
• Reports Phase 4 drilling (~25,000 of 40,000 meters completed, rigs down about five days before the interview) largely met its objective of making the open pits reserve-ready, with more assays due in the coming months and an updated resource targeted for mid-2027.

Faraday Copper's proposed acquisition of BHP's San Manuel and Kalamazoo assets would combine two adjacent Arizona properties into one of the largest US copper resources. About 18 billion pounds of copper across both assets, mostly historic estimates not yet NI 43-101 compliant, awaits confirmation drilling for a mid-2027 update. Because San Manuel sits on private land, permitting runs through county and state approvals rather than the federal process, speeding first production. The staged plan starts with San Manuel oxides plus Copper Creek open pits, using early cash flow to fund Kalamazoo underground development later. BHP (30%) and the Lundin Group (18%) now sit as strategic shareholders alongside over $120 million in cash, funding a path toward a construction decision.

Faraday Copper – Key Objectives and Targets Of The Ongoing 40,000 Meter Phase 4 Drill Campaign

• Top takeaway Graham argues the project is at a 'diminishing return' for further generative exploration and should now be scaled up to a stage where it makes economic sense to build — driving the timing of a concurrent mine plan and PFS/FS around 2027.
• He calls for being 'ruthless' with exploration capital — moving targets up the exploration triangle as confidence grows but also booting them out when the hypothesis doesn't work, and treating greenfield drilling as the riskiest category of spend.
• He frames oxide resource growth (from roughly 20M to 60M tons) as significantly accretive to the project's value because oxide is leached during sulfide prestrip and produces a domestic US cathode.
• He views the current US administration as supportive of critical-mineral permitting, citing Integra's Delamar project receiving a Fast 41 designation with a 12–14 month timeline as evidence of more predictable permitting timelines ahead.
• He describes the shareholder base as 'sticky money' — Lundin Family and group, Murray Edwards, Fidelity, Wellington, and Conoco — long-term capital willing to weather commodity cycles for the patient multi-year development a mine requires.

Faraday is engineering Phase 4 to add a large open-pit resource above the existing American Eagle underground. The CFO frames tripling oxide from 20Mt to 60Mt as a leachable, early-payback production layer. Sunrise Trend on the untested western side is the team's top exploration priority, with a rig already turning. Multi-tasking drill holes — resource, geotech, and hydrogeology — pulls more project data from each metre. Patient capital from Lundin, Edwards, Fidelity, and Wellington underwrites a multi-year path to a 2027 mine plan.