Gunnison Copper Corp (TSX:GCU, OTCQB:GCUMF, FRA:3XS0) CEO Craig Hallworth attended the American Mining Industry and Critical Minerals Roundtable hosted by President Donald Trump at the Department of State in Washington, DC.
Trump was joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, along with mining executives and academics, focused on shoring up domestic supplies of critical minerals, boosting mining and processing capacity at home, and cutting reliance on foreign sources.
At the roundtable, held August 7, Trump announced approximately US$3 billion in new investments and financing initiatives to support domestic critical minerals and battery supply chains. The administration also highlighted new investments in critical mineral production, advanced manufacturing and mining education as part of its broader strategy to strengthen domestic supply chains and accelerate development of the US critical minerals sector.
"We are in the midst of the most important transformation of the US industrial base to ever occur thanks to President Trump and the critical minerals policies of his administration," Hallworth said.
"This is a great, powerful, and long overdue transformation that aligns perfectly with our mission here at Gunnison Copper, which is to produce and reliably supply pure American copper to the nation's defense, energy, technology, and manufacturing sectors. We are working hard today, and in the future, to make President Trump's vision a great success and for the prosperity of all current and future generations in our country."
Gunnison Copper is a multi-asset pure-play copper developer and producer that controls the Cochise Mining District, containing 12 known deposits within an 8 km economic radius in the Southern Arizona Copper Belt. Its flagship Gunnison Copper project has a main pit measured and indicated mineral resource containing over 846 million tons with a total copper grade of 0.33%, containing 5.19 billion pounds of copper.
A preliminary economic assessment completed for the Gunnison Project yielded an NPV8% of $2 billion, an IRR of 23% and a payback period of 3.9 years. It is being developed as a conventional operation with open pit mining, heap leach, and SX/EW refinery to produce finished copper cathode on-site with a direct rail link.
Gunnison's Johnson Camp Asset, now in production, is fully funded by Nuton LLC, a Rio Tinto venture, with a production capacity of up to 25 million lbs of finished copper cathode annually.