Coppercore has entered into a ten-year lease agreement, including an option to purchase, for a copper concentration facility in the Santa Marta industrial region of Colombia’s Magdalena department.
The company announced that this agreement will provide a fixed operating base in Colombia for producing acid-free copper concentrate, intended for industrial buyers focused on scalable, lower-impact sourcing.
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Production at the facility is set to start with Phase 1-A, aiming for 1,000t of copper concentrate per month at 22–25% copper, with silver credits averaging around 300 grams per tonne silver.
The plant is designed for staged expansion, enabling an increase to 2,000t per month within 12–18 months and then 8,000–10,000t per month, depending on ore supply and processing scale.
Coppercore estimates that, at a steady-state rate of 2,000t per month, production could reach 50,000–60,000t of contained copper over the lease term.
At maximum scale, output could rise to 300,000t. These estimates assume full-capacity operation and do not account for ramp-up or fluctuations in ore supply.
The facility will use an alkaline flotation process for oxide ores, principally malachite and azurite, rather than traditional sulphuric acid leaching.
According to Coppercore, this technique removes the need for acid transport, storage and neutralisation and creates no acidic effluent.
Coppercore founder and CEO Antonio Treminio said: “The geology was never the problem in Colombia. The operating environment was, but that is finally changing.
“We did the hard work before the window opened: the plant, the team, the process, the buyers.
“This lease converts ten years of optionality into ten years of production capacity, with an option to purchase the assets and a path to extend beyond the initial term. This is a cash-generating asset from day one, not a multi-year development story.”
Plans include eventually running the plant with renewable solar and wind power, while operating an electric truck fleet for transport.
Ore will be sourced from legally authorised small and mid-sized producers through a centralised purchasing system.
The first supply agreement has been signed, with further negotiations under way. Coppercore is also in talks with international concentrate buyers.
Recent regulatory shifts in Colombia, along with a critical minerals framework with the US, have been welcomed by the company, which states these moves support responsible mining and stable investment conditions.
