CopAur Minerals’ flagship is the past-producing Kinsley Mountain project in Elko and White Pine counties, about 80 km south of West Wendover. The company also holds Troy Canyon in Nye County, now being funded by a private company called Pravda Strategic Minerals under an earn-in, plus a residual share position in Omega Pacific from the old Williams property in BC. In this interview, I asked about the May 2026 resource update, the PEA, where they stand with BLM permitting, and how they intend to pay for all of it.
TL;DR
CEO Andrew Neale’s pitch is that this is a permitting and financing story, not a drilling story. The May 2026 resource sits at 740,000 indicated ounces at about 1.1 g/t and 69,000 inferred at about 2 g/t, including 384,000 indicated ounces at 5.3 g/t at Secret Canyon, and the PEA describes a contractor-operated open pit feeding a 4,000 tpd heap leach, producing just over 120,000 ounces across roughly four years. Initial capital is US$82 million plus another US$30 million in year one, for an after-tax NPV5 of about US$39 million and a 20% IRR at US$3,200 gold. He was blunt that US$3,200 only just clears their 20% hurdle, that they would not build below it, and that at US$4,000 they would go ahead regardless. A preliminary plan of operations went to the BLM’s Elko office in August, the first meeting is expected in September, and consultants are telling them the process takes 12 to 18 months. Only about 25% of the ounces are oxide and leachable, while the other 75% are deeper refractory sulphides that need a separate flotation route, a separate permit and a scoping study that is underway but has not been formally announced. He also told me they are about to raise money again soon.
What have they done for shareholders lately?
Since Neale came in as CEO in October 2025 they closed C$3.3 million, cleared old debts, and put a Nevada-based owner’s team together under Lead Ram. APEX Geoscience rebuilt the geological model, which had not been updated since roughly 2020 despite about 20,000 metres of drilling in the interim, and that produced a 52% increase in resource ounces. They then tabled the PEA and filed the preliminary plan of operations with the BLM in August. He also flagged, without a formal announcement yet, that a scoping study on the sulphides has been started with the same group that did the PEA. On the tidy-up side, they relinquished the Williams property to Omega Pacific and now hold 6.3 million shares in it, and they handed Troy Canyon spending to Pravda, which is reimbursing costs since May and can earn 70%. There has been no drilling on the ground; he said outright the work now is paperwork and site access.
How much money do they have and what are they spending it on?
He would not give a cash figure, but the b urn is about C$250,000 a month, roughly C$3 million for next year, with about 80% going to consultants and only C$15,000 to C$20,000 a month on Vancouver G&A including marketing. He was counting on 15 cent options and warrants expiring late November 2026 and late January 2027 to bring in C$2 million, and the November half-warrants at 20 cents to bring in another C$3.3 million, but with the stock at about 12.5 cents that money is out of the money and is not showing up. So the board has passed a resolution and they will do a private placement in the next month or so, which he hopes to price above last November’s 10 cents. The market cap is about C$15 million on 120 million shares, roughly 162 million fully diluted, with average daily volume of about 20,000 shares. Note the PEA recommends about US$7.2 million of work over two years, which is already close to the whole market cap. For construction capital, he is talking about debt, a gold loan, a stream or a royalty rather than equity, and expects those talks to formalise early next year. Reclamation bonding and closure sit inside the capex at roughly US$9 to US$12 million, and the pre-strip is about US$33 million, the second-largest capex line after the plant.
Upcoming catalysts
Technical: the sulphide scoping study now underway, including a review of historical metallurgy with core available in West Wendover if gaps are found, and a planned RC program to step out on the oxides within about 250 metres of surface, though he said timing depends entirely on cash and could slip to 2027 or later.
Operational: the first BLM meeting in September 2026, which should define whether an EA or a full EIS is required and set the 12 to 18 month clock, plus trade-off decisions on grid power with the Mount Wheeler cooperative versus diesel gensets, and on autonomous and battery-electric mining equipment, which is why he was flying to a mining exhibition in China.
Corporate: the near-term private placement, capex financing discussions in early 2027, the 15 cent options and warrants expiring in November 2026 and January 2027, and permitting work for a helicopter-supported drill program at Troy Canyon next year, funded by Pravda.
Risks
The main risk the CEO talked about first was people. He has already lost his engineering manager and an earlier permitting consultant to full-time jobs elsewhere, and he said running out of money worries him mainly because it would mean losing the consultants and having to restart processes from the back of the queue. After that, I asked him whether the BLM could require a full EIS rather than an EA, which he estimated as roughly a 50% premium on both time and cost. The strip ratio of over 7 is high and investors have pushed back on the US$33 million pre-strip, according to Andrew’s own words. Gold below US$3,200 kills the project on their own hurdle rate. Financing is unproven, with the funding sources unnamed.
CopAur Minerals CEO Interview
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