Gunnison Copper Corp. (TSX: GCU) (OTCQB: GCUMF) (FSE: 3XS0) (“Gunnison” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the results of an updated NI 43-101 Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA” or “2026 PEA”) on its 100%-owned Gunnison Copper Project in the Cochise Mining District, Arizona, United States (“Gunnison Project”). The PEA supersedes the previous PEA on the Gunnison Project released in December 2024 (the “2024 PEA”) in all respects. All dollar amounts are in US dollars and “tons” refer to U.S. short tons (1 short ton equals approximately 0.91 metric tonnes or 2000 lbs).
Highlights:
- Conventional open pit, heap leach, SX/EW operation producing 99.999% pure copper cathode intended to supply United States energy, data center, manufacturing, and defense supply chains
- Straightforward mine plan consists primarily of oxide copper mineralized material with a life of mine material placed on the leach pad of 541 million tons at 0.43% total copper grade, including 25 million tons at 0.85% total copper grade from the Strong & Harris satellite deposit
- Primary crushing on all, and secondary crushing on some material to improve copper recoveries
- Average annual copper cathode production of 174 million pounds (“lbs”) (87 thousand tons) for the first 15 years; enough to potentially supply over 11% of the current United States domestic refined copper metal production from mineralized material1. Total copper produced 3.2 billion lbs over a 21 year mine life.
- Cash costs of $1.69, Sustaining Cash Costs of $2.00, and All-In Sustaining Cash Costs of $2.06 per pound of copper produced are in the lower half of the cost curve for copper mines globally.
- Robust project economics in a variety of copper price environments, including $4.60/lb base case:
| Copper Price Assumption: | $4.60/lb Cu Consensus | $5.75/lb Cu SPOT2 | |
| NPV8 (after-tax) | $M | 1,952 | 3,219 |
| IRR (after-tax) | % | 22.7% | 32.0% |
| Payback (after-tax) | #Years | 3.9 | 2.6 |
| Avg Annual Free Cash Flow (Y1-Y15) | $M | 366 | 514 |
- High purity limestone overburden, previously treated as waste, is now used to produce a cement co-product to alleviate the regional cement supply deficit adding $130M NPV8%
- Significant economic impact to Cochise County, State of Arizona, and the United States nationally through creation of over 53,000 jobs, $544 million in state and local county taxes, $1.37 billion in federal taxes, and $14.6 billion in total economic output3
The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. There is no certainty that the conclusions reached in the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.
Continue at Gunnison Copper
