Solstice Minerals (ASX: SLS) has made a strategic move into the high-flying copper market with the acquisition of the advanced Nanadie project in Western Australia.

The company has entered into a binding agreement with Cyprium Metals (ASX: CYM) for 100% of the project, which comprises multiple granted licences covering 130 square kilometres south-east of Meekatharra in the Murchison District.

Morgan Stanley recently highlighted copper as its most preferred base metal next year, predicting prices will climb to around $10,600 (US$9,500) a tonne by the end of 2025, while both Rio Tinto and BHP have recently highlighted copper as a key resource in their growth plans.

Copper asset search

Solstice chief executive officer and managing director Nick Castleden said the company had been on the hunt for strategic growth opportunities in copper for some time.

“Particularly focusing on those rare assets that are located in stable and proven mining-friendly jurisdictions with limited competing land use, offer significant exploration upside and can be secured at a reasonable price,” he added.

“Nanadie ticks all of those boxes and we are delighted to have secured such a complementary addition to our portfolio.”

Favourable outlook

“Copper is widely seen as a commodity with one of the most favourable long-term supply-demand outlooks of all the major metals and yet finding quality assets is extremely difficult,” Mr Castleden said.

“We are excited by the scale, geometry and mineral resource estimate (MRE) growth potential at Nanadie and recognise that mafic magmatic systems like these can also deliver zones of increased grade.”

Solstice also sees the potential for new mineralised positions with targeted exploration.

Significant upside

Nanadie is located within a granted mining lease, with strike extensions that offer greenfield targets for shallow drilling.

While it is yet to carry out metallurgical test work, Solstice considers the style of sulphide mineralisation to be suitable for conventional grind and flotation processing with the potential to deliver a clean copper-gold concentrate.

“Our medium-term work plan will be exploration-focused, aiming to scope the mostly unconstrained Nanadie disseminated system beyond MRE boundaries and explore for new copper-gold mineralisation along strike and at depth,” Mr Castleden said.

Initial targets identified

Solstice plans to follow up two significant and partially defined magmatic intrusive-style mineral systems at Nanadie and the Stark copper-gold, nickel and platinum group elements prospect.

Mr Castleden said Nanadie offers excellent exploration potential to build on a JORC-compliant inferred MRE of 40.4 million tonnes at 0.4% copper and 0.1 grams per tonne gold for 162,000t of contained copper and 130,000 ounces of gold.

The company believes there is the possibility that mineralisation extends beyond the limits of previous drilling in most directions.