“Our Planalto Copper Project will be a Mine” explains Lara Exploration CEO Simon Ingram

MiningStockEducation.com Apr 13, 2026

Summary

Lara Exploration closed a C$33M financing at C$3 per share with no warrants, giving the junior several years of runway.

About $10 million funds moving the Planalto copper-gold open-pit project from PEA (a preliminary economic assessment) toward feasibility.

European copper producer Atalaya Mining took 7% at the corporate level, a plain equity stake with no special rights or investor agreement.

Ingram argues the share price reflects a wide discount to project value, with the stock up from $3 to about $3.65 since closing.

Drill results arrive within two to three months, converting inferred and indicated resource and testing the Silica Cap trend for higher grades.

Ingram says the recently closed C$33M (about US$25M) financing, priced at C$3 a share with no warrants, gives Lara several years of runway to move the Planalto copper-gold open-pit project through pre-feasibility and start feasibility work without having to return to the market.
He says about $10 million of that raise is earmarked for the next phase: infill drilling to move the Planalto resource from inferred and indicated into indicated and measured, plus technical studies and an environmental study ahead of permitting.
At the time of the April 2026 interview the shares traded around $3.65, up from $3 in the raise and from roughly $0.55 about two and a half years earlier; Ingram calls that a large discount to what he expects the project to be worth as it moves toward production, and frames the discount as an opportunity.
Atalaya Mining took about 7% at the corporate level on identical terms to other investors, a few other institutions came in alongside, and insiders also bought, leaving management slightly under the roughly 20% of shares they held before the raise.
Near-term catalysts he flags are drill results over the next two to three months that he expects to largely confirm the PEA resource, plus follow-up drilling along the Silica Cap trend into the newly acquired Atlantica license, where surface work suggests grades could run 0.6% to 0.8% copper, above the main pit.

Top takeaway Powers structures the interview around the closed C$33M financing, pressing Ingram on why 7% was sold at the corporate level rather than at the project level, and on how the roughly $10 million budget splits between exploration drilling and infill plus technical studies.
He frames Lara as a company that has prided itself on a tight register of long-term holders and asks whether that holds for the new investors, and closes by asking which catalysts investors should watch over the next two to three months.