My Thoughts on Why Adventus Copper is a Great Balanced Play For The Copper Bull Market 

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TSX.V: ADZN.V   OTC: ADVZF

Intro

My name is Dan and I am a Toronto based Resource Investor. I have dabbled in the royalty and oil/ gas space for a decade plus but more recently got the “metals investing bug” in late 2019 and haven’t looked back. In this note I will provide what I believe to be a strong case for taking a hard look at Adventus Mining as I believe the company has great near term and long-term prospects. In an environment where many companies are “cheap”, I believe the company's stock price has the ability to materially rerate in the coming months and years. Here is my case for Adventus, enjoy!

Background and Backers – Founded in 2016

Adventus Mining was started in late 2016 when Christian Kargl Simard (CKS hereafter) was approached by Brian Dalton of Altius Minerals about coming on as CEO to run a new copper company in Ecuador of which Altius held royalties on select properties. Christian had enjoyed early career success in the financing side with both Raymond James and Haywood and worked with Altius and other firms to great success in raising capital for mining projects (raising $7 billion plus and being involved in 35 M+A deals). If you don't know Altius look no further than the chart below, and you will understand that they are no ordinary project / royalty generator.

From inception through today - Altius has moved from $0.36 - ~$19.72

As evident from the chart above, Altius under Brian's stewardship has achieved incredible success. The royalty co is bullish on copper, holding a stream on Lundin’s Chapada, a royalty on Voisey’s Bay and many other notable projects including Adventus’ Curipamba (2% NSR). So, from the start Adventus had a strong backer in Altius who also retains an 8% holding in the company. Another key early backer was Wheaton Precious metals who is known in the mining world to have a superb in-house geological brain trust. Wheaton holds 9% of the companies’ equity at present and also was a primary contributor to the companies financing of Curipamba late last year, more on this to come. Lastly, I would be remis not to mention Nobis. Nobis is a private Ecuadorian investment group who is influential in many industries including agriculture, real estate, as well as the industrial and commercial sectors. Importantly Nobis has strong relationships in country across the business, social and political spectrums. Nobis holds 7% of Adventus.

Adventus Shareholder Mix – A Strong showing of Industry and institutional backers

Adventus would strike gold, or should I say Copper! :) in 2017 when they inked an exploration alliance with Salazar Resources, run by Freddy Salazar. Freddy is a one of Ecuador’s most well-known and respected explorers having worked with Newmont on notable projects including Fruta Del Norte, before starting his own environmental consulting firm. Salazar is a project generator and so they have their ear to the railroad track so to speak and have a first mover advantage when it comes to Ecuador projects. Adventus and Salazar went on to form a partnership in which they split projects vended by Salazar at generally a 75/25% split in Adventus' favor. The first and cornerstone project vended to the alliance by Salazar was the Curipamba copper-gold project. Other projects would follow including Santiago and Pijili (80/20% split with SRL carried to construction decision) which will be covered later on. Curipamba is among the most economic copper mines in the world with the largest payable metal being copper at an extremely high average grade of ~5.5%. This grade is instrumental in the projects great economics as outlined below.

Curipamba in 2022

Fast Forward to 2022 and Curipamba is now fully financed through to production - to the tune of $236 USD million from a streaming and equity deal from early backers Wheaton Precious Metals, as well as mining giant Trafigura who has an offtake agreement and a senior debt facility and in a rare move has also taken an equity position in the junior. In a display of financial wizardry and dealmaking CKS was able to fund the vast majority of the project with the stream, debt and corporate equity offerings leaving only $33 million to be raised issuing stock. The share offering component was accomplished in early 2022 with terms at $0.97 CAD share plus a half warrant ($1.20 - Exp. July 2023). At the time I thought $0.97 was cheap and I was tempted to get in ahead of more progress towards the build. The feasibility showed a robust project at $259 million USD at NPV8 on the open pit and $49 million more for an underground portion. This was based upon $3.50 Copper, $1.20 Zinc, $1700 Gold, $23 Silver and $0.97/pound Zinc. Copper and gold are expected to be the largest contributors in terms of revenue over the project life. At time of writing Copper is meaningfully higher at $4.23/lb. and Gold is at $1875, so this already strong NPV at spot is looking way better. The All in Sustaining Costs per pound of copper is $1.26/lb. or in gold terms the equivalent is US $308 per ounce all in sustaining cost vs the $1700 feasibility or $1875 spot - either way its highly economic. The company for its part will retain all profits to pay down debt until the build costs are paid, at which point the split will move to the JV amount of 75% Adventus / 25% Salazar.

The operation is not huge but still will generate a gold equivalent production of 92,000 ounces a year and so this operation will throw off significant cash (recall $308 ASIC per gold ounce equivalent) at current levels and things could get silly if copper surges as world supply diminishes, and demand is increasing with the green shift to all things electric/ solar/ wind. All of this sounds great and Adventus has been hitting all its deliverables on time or early – case in point its ESIA approval which was announced in early June 2022. The company originally had guided by year end, but was able to accomplish this about 6 months early due to a very supportive governmental counterpart in Ecuador who has been working diligently on file. There are still some boxes to tick but things are trending nicely for all approvals by year end, and production by H2 2024. I should note that Curipamba is the poised to be the next copper mine scheduled to come online in Ecuador and more importantly worldwide.

Adventus Stock Price

You would think Adventus stock would have continued to climb in price as it checked off key deliverables and given the fundamentals and forecasts for off the charts copper pricing in the mid and long term. EMX's David Cole has been quoted as saying "the world is set to use as much copper in the next 25 years, as has ever been consumed by mankind." EMX like Altius is a big believer in Dr. Copper. Adventus stock however has been caught up in a downward spiral thanks to a perfect storm of the mining markets slumping (more so in the juniors) and mass inflationary pressures that have seen more than one high profile mining company concede that costs will be materially higher on projects currently under construction. These items along with the fact that it’s a development story in its "boring" and exacerbated by mass market weakness and liquidations by two funds in the past 10-12 weeks has resulted in a current share price of $0.66 CAD. It actually got down to 0.52 CAD briefly but has rebounded some since then. Personally, as long as my investment thesis holds, I don’t read to much into fund liquidations as they all have their own investment timelines and mandates, much like individual investors.

Adventus share price over the last year


Valuation Disconnect

Currently the market is giving the company a valuation of ~$108 million CAD. With over $30 million CAD in hand the enterprise value of ~$78 million CAD is much less than the companies expected year 1 attributable cashflow. In comparison,  Silvercrest, an industry peer held a roughly $1 billion dollar valuation when it was at the same point Adventus is at with development for Curipamba. It’s also possible that the company has somewhat of a discount applied due to the fact they are in construction and there is concern that there will be cost over runs. On my side though I don't have these concerns, for 2 reasons:

1) CKS has stated in a recent interview that the company has $60 Million USD available in non-dilutive capital if needed, although it is not anticipated any overruns would come anywhere close to this.

2) This is where the market is a bit asleep at the wheel, as Adventus has recently brought on a world class mine builder named Skott Mealer. Skott recently oversaw the start of the La Coipa mine in Chile for Kinross and came in $20 million under budget. Skott also has extensive experience with projects in Ecuador having worked on Fruta Del Norte and Mirador. He was originally anointed by Kinross to build their next mine in Russia but in spell of good luck for Adventus had personal reasons to relocate to Ecuador and head up the development of Curipamba.

Recap

So, my first point is that Curipamba is a great backstop on the share price and highly undervalued as is. It also has mitigation in place for cost overruns and a great mine builder at the helm to ensure things are done right and on time. It will come online in H2 2024 and to me it’s a great buy and hold as it rerates with project progress and improvements in copper and metals sentiment. Analysts from Goldman Sachs have come out recently saying that copper is projected to hit all-time highs in the next 3 months on its way to ~$5.75 a year from now. I also love the simple fact that I am able to get shares for ~2/3rds of the project financing package price in January.

But wait.... There's More

If it was just Curipamba, I am not sure I would be as excited as I am right now, but in the words of many a great infomercial host:".... wait...there's more!" The company also holds a few other projects that hold great potential. One of which CKS has stated as “Currently the best copper porphyry target on the planet.”

Santiago

Adventus certainly has more than 1 card in hand and Santiago could very well turn out to be the Ace. Santiago is a large copper-gold target. The company has spent many years working with Salazar on social acceptance of the project, and recently the company has stated publicly that these efforts have facilitated a plan that is moving towards drilling in the second half of 2022. The program itself does not sound impressive at first glance, at 3000 meters. But when I learned this was over just 3 holes I was intrigued. It turns out the company has a good deal of data on the project in the form of old drill results as well as updated geophysics. The project had 2 previous operators (1970-80s and 1990s) including Newmont. Newmont on their side were only interested in an open pit scenario and so they only drilled down to 300 meters. 2 of their historic drill holes stand out:

FUD-1: From less than 1 meter from surface - 323.09 meters @ 0.65% CuEq

FUD 2: From 129.05 meters from surface - 170.95 meters @ 0.91% copper CuEq

Both holes were stopped at 300 meters, and both holes ended in mineralization!!!

Don't forget, at the time the copper price was not what it is today and so the numbers needed to turn a project economic were quite different. CKS is confident that given coinciding geophysical surveys there is a strong possibility that this mineralization can continue much further down, say 1KM or more. The imaging below shows the geophysical anomalies which are said to be 3 kilometers across by 2 kilometers down.


In case you have forgotten, or are new to mining juniors - a 1KM and up hole of ~0.6-0.9% copper would be a substantial drill result.

This type of result would place Adventus in the company of Filo Mining (Filo Del Sol) and Solaris (Warintza) who have both seen astronomical rises in share price off the back of excellent and repeated success in drilling long copper intervals. This alone could double, triple or quadruple or perhaps more - the stock in a short span of time. In comparison to Adventus’ current market cap at $108 million CAD, Filo now holds a $3 Billion dollar + market cap while Solaris is north of $ 1 Billion.


Once drilling gets underway, Adventus plans three 1KM holes. If these holes match historical grades from FUD-01 and 02 but are mineralized  for a much larger interval (as the imaging above may support)... look out !


And if Bluesky isn’t enough

Adventus has a few other notable projects, notably Pijili. Pijili is a promising gold copper target that the company has had been advancing with a 7000-meter program in 2020 through 2021. Separate discoveries were made in each of October 2020 – 14m meters of 0.3% and in April 2021 with 19 meters at 3.6% cuEQ. The company has an exciting target called Pato which it hopes to drill in 2022 as part of a planned program at Pijili. For this program however the company is looking for JV or earn in partners which I think is smart. The company has their hands full with Curipamba and potentially Santiago and so why spread themselves thin. Recently CKS has noted in live presentations that the company is working on a potential JV deal for Pijili with a mid-tier mining company who would take the reins and progress this project. This will no doubt lower Adventus’ exposure to the project, but as the old saying goes “it’s better to have a quarter of a watermelon than a whole grape...or something like that 😊 “

Apart from Curipamba, Santiago and a potential Pijili JV the company also has exposure to a portfolio of projects being advanced in Ireland by Australian mid-tier South 32 who will fund a planned 4,500 meters of drilling and exploration in 2022.


Closing summary

Here is a summary of why I believe Adventus is a compelling investment TODAY:

1) Curipamba presents real value and upside while being fully financed. The team has a strong mine builder and team to advance and strong financial and technical backing and know how to ensure it comes online in H2 2024. I believe Curipamba provides strong value on its own and as a hedge going forward and as great leverage in a rising copper bull market.

2) Santiago This presents the blue-sky opportunity for the company. With success it could propel the company to a much higher valuation, where IMO it would form a new base given coppers fundamentals and projections of strength over the coming decade.

3) Additional Optionality with Pijili and Ireland portfolio CKS and team understand what it takes to build and explore and so they are focusing on core value and exploration upside with Curipamba and Santiago, while being realistic about not spreading the company's resources thin. The upside from Pijili and the Irish portfolio is great to have and given the embedded value from the first two items is essentially free (as is Santiago really).

4) CKS and team are highly experienced and skilled where it counts and have backing and partners by the likes of industry heavyweights like: Wheaton Precious Metals, Trafigura, Nobis and Altius.

5) Tight share structure – One last positive, and new item I wanted to end on is the fact that the company currently has a tight share structure, should they have luck at Santiago. The company currently has ~166 million shares free trading, but... 81% of these are held by either an institutional, strategic investors or management. This leaves only ~31 million retail shares available for trading on a daily basis. This means that positive developments have the potential to really propel the company in the event of positive news. For full disclosure the company has ~200 million shares fully diluted and this will increase with further equity issuance to Wheaton Precious and Trafigura, but I have no concerns as the company should be hitting many rerating milestones as these securities make their way to market.

I believe the company is well positioned for all of the above reasons for both the near and long term and encourage you to learn more about the Adventus and particularly Curipamba and Santiago.


Thanks for your time and GLTA with your investments.  If you enjoyed this article please consider following me:

Dan - https://ceo.ca/@cdnresourceinvestor


Further Reading/ Watching:

Adventus Mining Website: https://www.adventusmining.com/ 

Adventus Presentation @ May 2022 Metals Investor Forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxK9Vkt1ics

Adventus on Mining Stock Daily Talking about Recent EISA Approval: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/corporate-commentary-on-adventus-mining-esia-approval/id1418050443?i=1000564737774

$ADZN  $SRL $ALS $SLW  #Trafigura #copper #developers 

Disclosure: I have a beneficial long position in the shares of one or more of the companies discussed in this article, either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article without external assistance, and it expresses my personal opinions. I was not compensated for this article, and I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.