Interview with Craig Hallworth, President & CEO of Gunnison Copper
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/gunnison-copper-tsxgcu-advances-2b-arizona-project-toward-2028-construction-decision-10985
Recording date: 24th September 2026
Gunnison Copper Corp. (TSX:GCU, OTCQB:GCUMF) enters the final quarter of 2026 as one of the few junior copper companies with a producing US mine. On 22 September, the company declared commercial production at the Johnson Camp Mine in Cochise County, Arizona, following record August output of 1,304,448 lbs of copper cathode. CEO Craig Hallworth said this represents about 60% of the mine's nameplate capacity of 25 million lbs a year. The remaining ramp-up requires no further permits or construction and depends on leach recovery curves building over time.
Johnson Camp is the first full-scale commercial application of Nuton, Rio Tinto's sulfide leaching technology, which turns sulfide copper into cathode on site instead of shipping it to Asian smelters. The trade-off for shareholders is timing. Nuton has invested more than $200 million, and Johnson Camp's profits go towards repaying that sum until it is recovered or until mid-2030, whichever comes first. Hallworth advised investors to assume the deadline is reached first, at which point any remaining balance falls away. Until then, Gunnison is extracting value in other ways. These include an $8 million payment from Nuton for adding ore tonnage, around $3 million a year of overhead allocated to the mine budget, and an expected refundable Arizona jobs tax credit of up to about $2 million. The company has also chosen to forgo its $13.9 million Section 48C credit so that it keeps access to incentives that may be worth more.
Hallworth estimates Johnson Camp accounts for about 5% of company value. The rest lies in the Gunnison Project. The March 2026 PEA shows an after-tax NPV of $1.96 billion at $4.60/lb copper, a 22.5% IRR and around 174 million lbs of annual cathode output. Initial capital is about $1.6 billion, including a $300 million acid plant. Around 2 billion lbs of Measured and Indicated copper sits outside the current mine plan. Higher price assumptions or design changes could bring some of it in.
The de-risking programme has two strands. Up to 405 column leach tests, against roughly 25 in the PEA, aim to confirm recovery and acid consumption assumptions. Preliminary results are expected in Q4 2026, with most results due by mid-2027. On permitting, the amended Mined Land Reclamation Plan has been submitted, and approval is expected by the end of 2026. The Aquifer Protection Permit and Air Quality Permit amendments follow in 2027. The company is targeting full permitting and a potential final investment decision by mid-2028.
Funding the build requires a partner. Hallworth's base case is a toehold investment of around 5% from a mine builder valued at $10-20 billion. He believes this would validate the project without heavy dilution at an estimated 0.25 times NAV. A US government debt partnership is the alternative. No agreement has been signed. The company expects to be debt-free by the end of September and has about $25 million available. That is enough for roughly 12 months at current spending, before the drilling programme expands.
View Gunnison Copper's company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/gunnison-copper
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