Gunnison Copper Corp (TSX:GCU, OTCQB:GCUMF, FRA:3XS0) earlier this week appointed Craig Hallworth as president and chief executive officer as the company continues advancing both the Johnson Camp Mine restart and its flagship Gunnison copper project in Arizona.
Proactive: All right welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. And joining me now is the newly named president and CEO Craig Hallworth of Gunnison Copper Corp. And Craig, it's great to see you again. How are you? Congratulations.
Craig Hallworth: Thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here.
Yeah, well. Exciting news. You're now the CEO, the president, and obviously you have a long history with the company as well as you were the executive vice president and CFO as well. So let's sort of take a step back here. And in that role as CFO, you were able to make a lot of changes that as you take on the leadership role, now you've been able to really right the company in a really positive way.
Well, the first thing I want to just mention is that ever since I joined this company 18 months ago, I've just seen incredible support for our transformation. As we transformed into what is now Gunnison Copper, the support came from all over — our people, our investors, and new institutional shareholders that I’m very proud to have on board with us. We also had strong support from the county and the state of Arizona.
One of the biggest things we accomplished financially was eliminating the secured debt, which was a legacy item. Over the last 12 months we were able to eliminate it, and that positions the company much better to finance the next stage of development with equity.
Yeah, because you were in that role and you've been with the company and you saw the inner workings. As you transition now to the CEO role, it gives you an opportunity to really start running right from the beginning of the job. What are some of the things that you are focused on right out of the gate?
We have to get our Johnson Camp Mine up to full production. This was something very impressive that we did in the last year. We were able to construct and restart this mine in record time. It’s something we haven’t seen in this country in many years — a new mine restart producing copper.
We brought back jobs as well, around 200 when including direct employees, contractors and local vendors and suppliers in Cochise County. Right now we’re ramping up to nameplate production, which I believe we’ll achieve by the end of this year. Investors should expect a commercial production announcement next quarter.
Resource expansion, metallurgical testing, permitting and the feasibility study are all underway as well. You also expanded your technical team. It really sounds like the company is pushing forward aggressively.
Yes. We’re talking about our Gunnison flagship copper project. This is really big. It’s got scale and it’s going to be important at the national level for the United States. We’re advancing this project with urgency.
We’ve added new technical appointments including a chief metallurgist, chief geologist and a permitting lead who was instrumental in permitting another nearby copper project. We’re building the team and moving this project forward quickly.
One thing I’m especially excited about is resource expansion. In 2025 we added over 500 million pounds of copper metal to the project, increasing the resource from 2.7 billion pounds to 3.2 billion pounds and adding roughly three years to mine life.
For 2026, we’ve earmarked $10 million in the pre-feasibility study budget for additional resource expansion drilling and work. I think we have strong targets and the potential to add even more metal.
Lastly, Craig, on a personal note, you’ve put a lot of work into getting to this point. This must be an exciting opportunity for you personally as you step into the CEO role.
I feel a very deep responsibility to deliver for investors, our employees and stakeholders across Arizona. We want people to enjoy coming to work and to be part of building what could become the next major copper mine in the United States. I’m excited to put all my energy into making that happen.
I've enjoyed our conversations, and we're going to have a lot more in this new role. So Craig, thanks so much. Great to see you again and congratulations.
Thank you.
Quotes have been lightly edited for style and clarity