Categories: Base Metals / Mining Stocks
Topics: General Base Metals / Copper Stocks

Libero Copper & Gold (TSX-V: LBC)(OTC: LBCMF) CEO Ian Harris on Hitting Two Distinct High-Grade Zones: 350 Metres at 0.70% CUEQ and 101 Metres at 0.76% CUEQ

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Libero Copper & Gold (TSX-V: LBC)(OTC: LBCMF), Mr. Ian Harris. Ian, it's great to have you back on. How are you?

Ian Harris: You, too. You, too. It's a good cold morning in Toronto. I'm used to Medellin.

Gerardo Del Real: I somewhat sympathize with you. I'm in Austin, Texas, so I understand what it's like to go from 75, 80 degrees Fahrenheit to all of a sudden being very, very cold. But listen, cold weather aside, you have to be thrilled with Drill Hole 45. You hit two distinct high grade zones. The highlight numbers are 350 meters at 0.70% copper equivalent and 101 meters at 0.76% copper equivalent. And as importantly, you're proving out the geological model, and you talk about this emerging system of feeders. So I want to get right into it. Can you provide some context on the numbers?

Ian Harris: Sure. We, as Libero, have put three holes. This is our third hole. They're very long holes. They're obviously, I call them backbones because they're really de-risking our overall goal, which is to greatly increase the resource at the deposit. And these three holes individually, one after the other, so it's not three out of 30 holes. It's the first three holes in a context of overall it's called copper percent meters. If these happened in 2024, they would've been in the top 10 best copper drill holes in the world. Right?

And that gives you not just the context of how good of a hole they are, but also on the size and potential size of the system. Hole 44, which was our last hole, was pretty much straight north. This one was to the west southwest. So it's not even drilling into the same areas. They're over a very broad area. So it shows the robustness of the Mocoan deposit, mineralization starting from surface, and then the backdrop of a world where executive orders out of the United States looking at copper not from a commercial standpoint, but from a strategic national security standpoint, it lies as a strong deposit to be feeding into as these new copper production chains are made.

The other side of the story too is it's moly, right? Even in the current resource out of the projects that I know, Mocoa is probably the third-largest undeveloped moly deposit in the world. China has just announced potential restrictions on exports of moly. They're obviously the world's largest moly producer, saw an off-take agreement last week with Greenland Resources, tying up 50% of their potential future moly resource, and they're probably the second-largest moly resource. So there's just so many things going on at the same time we're advancing this project, so obviously we're very excited of where we're going and the momentum the project is building.

Gerardo Del Real: No, look, it's an exciting time. It's been a lot of years of work behind the scenes to get to this stage. What comes next? You touched on the copper supply and demand fundamentals and the geopolitical uncertainty. And I think, look, you're hitting the sweet spot of what I think is going to be a copper bull that's with us for many, many years with structural deficits emerging and becoming more and more apparent. But what comes next for Libero?

Ian Harris: So we have a 14,000-meter program. We're probably about 3,500 meters into it. So the following holes like 46, is a significant step out into where we think there's an expansion potential to the east. We are re-looking at the holes. Frank Balint just came on, who used to be the VPX and VP of Corporate Development for Inmet for 30 years, to take a real porphyry expert to help us re-look at it. Especially too, because the western side of the deposit has opened up because the Forestry Reserve has been redefined.

But in a bigger perspective, maybe looking down about one to two years, we want to get this project over that billion ton mark, right? That's kind of our goal. We're putting 50% more drilling than ever been put into this project. It's already over 600 million tonnes. It's already over 4 billion pounds of copper. But getting it to that size and scale is important.

And the other thing that's important is in the backdrop of Colombia, first round of presidential elections are coming up in just 14 months. Right? And so, there's an expectation that after elections, there might be a window opening up for the project. And I'm saying this, over the last 10 years, there's only been really five big copper projects built in the world. Two are in Peru, one was the DRC, one was Ecuador, where I used to work at Mirador, and the other one was Panama. Right?

And so, people talk about different jurisdictions and can you build or mine or not? But look, it was Panama, Ecuador, DRC, and two in Peru. Right? And my experience and shared experience too with Ernie Mast, who was the CEO Inmet's Cobre Panama, and Frank Balint is that these windows open up and we want to make sure this project is at the front of the line, more robust, has some definition, potentially have a PEA done so that as a new president comes in and he's looking for attracting investment, etc, etc, that we have something significant to offer. So this is also in the back of our head, very strong.

Mocoa has so many things going for it, not just that it's advancing, it's building momentum. I think we can achieve these goals that we're trying to establish to get it forward. But it's right next to 220 kV power lines. It's right off the National Highway. It's right 400 kilometers from port. So it could be a low CapEx per pound producer in the future, which I think also adds to its attractiveness

Gerardo Del Real: A lot to like, a busy 2025, catalyst-rich. I know you're at PDAC. Where can people find you?

Ian Harris: So yeah, we will be at PDAC. Libero does have a booth at PDAC. I'm at the MIF today. I was yesterday at the pre-PDAC, so trying to touch and talk to as many people as possible over the next few days here in Toronto.

Gerardo Del Real: Good stuff, good stuff. Thanks for your time as always, Ian.

Ian Harris: Thank you, sir. Always nice to talk to you.