By: Richard Roberts - Editorial Director, Beacon Events

The start of drilling at Blackstone Minerals’ intriguing major copper-gold play on Luzon in the Philippines will give managing director Scott Williamson a base to build his case that the junior is a sector standout at this month’s IMARC Mines and Money Pitch Battle in Sydney.

Williamson has continued to rack up frequent flyer points this year, raising fresh capital for Blackstone’s planned aggressive drilling program at Mankayan over the coming months, striking a deal with Vietnamese industrial group Xuan Loc Tho to advance its former Vietnam flagship project and promoting copper and the Philippines to the investment community at large.

There’s no shortage of tailwinds on the copper front, of course. Better tidings on the geopolitical front, too.

Williamson told a recent metals investment forum in Vancouver there had been “a real push from the [Ferdinand Marcos Jr-led] government to streamline permitting and clean up illegal mining – so a real pro-mining push”. Philippines sovereign wealth fund, Maharlika Investment Corporation, this year provided finance to ASX-listed Celsius Resources for its MCB copper-gold project. Canada’s Fraser Institute reported a move up from 72 to 16 among more than 80 jurisdictions worldwide in its latest international Mineral Attractiveness Index. Australia’s Austrade previously said Marcos Jr’s 2022 election win “opened a new chapter in the Philippine mining sector”. “Unlike previous administrations’ resistance to mining, the Marcos Jr Administration has prioritised the revitalisation of the mining sector,” it said.

“The previous president created negative sentiment around mining,” Williamson said in Vancouver.

“We think we’ve got a really good run with the current president and he is incentivising mining and doing all the right things. We’re seeing the mid-caps [such as] B2Gold and OceanaGold investing heavily in the region and that’s a good sign that we’re going into a better regime.”

Blackstone got A$5 million of Macquarie Bank backing for its recent circa-$22 million equity raise, which followed completion of an all-scrip acquisition of Mankayan owner IDM International. Williamson says Blackstone has cut its c$100,000-a-month cash burn in Vietnam with the Xuan Loc Tho deal and will go all-in on 50,000m-plus of drilling at Mankayan aimed at potential extensions of the current porphyry JORC resource, building a better understanding of the higher-grade core, and having a look at possible repeats of regional epithermal gold and copper veining just north of the known porphyry zone.

The $137 million-market-cap Blackstone, which has seen its share price rise by 160% this year, is already sitting on a huge resource at Mankayan: 793 million tonnes at 0.65% copper-equivalent for 2.8Mt of copper, 9.7 million ounces of gold and 20.4Moz of silver. A “high-grade core” is estimated at 170Mt grading 0.93% Cu-eq. About 2.5km away the Far Southeast porphyry, which has had major interest over the years from the likes of Rio Tinto and Gold Fields, has an estimated 4.5Mt of copper and 20Moz of gold.

“We’ve got two drill rigs ready: one owner rig and one contractor rig,” Williamson said ahead of an imminent drilling start.

“What worked well in Vietnam is we got our costs down to $50 a metre [by owning our own rig].

“That was much shallower drilling. These drills rigs can do 1.8km holes so we’re expecting the costs to be a little bit higher than that. But if we can get, say, $100 a metre that would be a great result.

“A lot of [the new drilling] will be extending the known orebody at depth and extending the high-grade resource and core and better understanding the high-grade. These holes will be angled through the high grade ... The historic holes are all vertical and potentially have misrepresented the vertical veining. With angled drill holes we think we can actually increase the grade.

“The deepest hole to date is only 1.5km and we’re extending at least 300m and up to 500m deeper.

“We are also seeing 700m, and up to 1km, to the north higher-grade gold and copper in veins and so there is a chance we might have epithermal veining similar to next door [at the producing Lepanto mine]. Next door they’ve mined high-grade epithermal, high-sulphidation veining. They’ve also mined gold-only veins. So we’re excited to explore and understand more about the epithermal veining to the north.”

Lepanto, locally owned by Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company, has a 900,000 tonnes-per-annum processing plant currently producing modest amounts of gold and silver but its history dates back to 1936 and features significant past copper output.

Williamson said systematic modern exploration had not yet occurred at Mankayan which nevertheless has been the focus of 56,000m of past drilling. It was first discovered back in the early 1970s.

A note from Sydney investment firm Evolution Capital earlier this year said Gold Fields had outlaid a whopping US$500 million or so, including 100,000m of drilling, at nearby Far Southeast.

It said Mankayan already had a long-dated mining lease (to 2046): “Mining development can be fast tracked once optimisation studies are complete.” Evolution put a consolidation query next to its rundown of the district copper and precious metals endowment, saying Mankayan’s proximity to Far Southeast “presents compelling consolidation opportunities”.

“Mankayan's 0.65% copper-equivalent grade mirrors peer projects like Northparkes while containing 45% more gold content,” it said of Mankayan’s strategic dimension. Australian mid-tier miner Evolution Mining paid about US$400 million for China Molybdenum Co’s 80% stake in the Northparkes copper-gold block cave mine in 2023.

“[There are] more than a dozen other copper-gold porphyries within 10km of Mankayan,” Evolution Capital said, while pointing to the continuation of elevated global copper M&A since last year’s US$15 billion of deals. As well as BHP/Lundin Mining’s $1.4b Filo Corp purchase, Boliden’s $1.45b acquisition of Lundin Europe assets, and Greatland Resources’ $430 million buyout of Rio Tinto and Sumitomo at Winu in Western Australia, there’s the new $50b Anglo American-Teck mega-deal.

And Zijin Mining, with circa-$2.5b of investment, had led an aggressive China “acquire and asset scale-up strategy” targeting copper in Tibet, DRC, Botswana and Ecuador, said Evolution. Minmetals and Tongling Nonferrous Metals had been part of that charge.

“Recent major global copper acquisitions demonstrate intensifying competition for copper assets,” Evolution said.

Blackstone will be among about 100 explorers and smaller miners in the unique Mines and Money Mining & Investment Hub at IMARC.

The much-anticipated Mining Pitch Battle will again be hosted by Lowell Resources Funds Management director Richard Morrow.

Experts judges will include Lowell’s chief investment officer John Forwood, EMR Capital industry legend Owen Hegarty, Far East Capital boss Warwick Grigor, Arete Capital Partners CEO Campbell Olsen, senior analyst with Terra Capital, Dylan Kelly, and Marcus Today’s Henry Jennings.

The International Mining and Resources Conference + Expo (IMARC) runs from October 21 to 23 at ICC Sydney.