With market dynamics very much in its favor, copper looks like a smart-money bet for at least the next decade.

And if you want to maximize your gains on that trade, US Copper (USCU.V; USCUF.OTC) and its world-class, U.S.-based project offer a compelling, high-return opportunity.

Dear Fellow Investor,

Copper has enjoyed extraordinary recognition in the past year or so.

After dropping to nearly $2.00/lb. in the wake of the Covid lockdowns last March, copper prices soared to all-time highs, hitting a near-term peak earlier this year of just over $4.80/lb.

Uncertainty about the Fed’s response to inflation has softened commodities (copper included) over the last two months, but the long-term picture for the red metal points much higher.

The chart below shows why:

Powered by the electrification of transportation systems and a dearth of new, large and easily mineable copper deposits, Jefferies predicts copper demand will exceed supply by 5.7 million tonnes by 2030 and 9.6 million tonnes by 2035.

With long-term trends that stark and a green-tinted post-Covid recovery goosing copper prices in the short-term, today’s investors are looking to profit from copper’s ascent.

One play they’ve overlooked (for the moment) is US Copper (USCU.V; USCUF.OTC).

Given that US Copper controls a district-scale project hosting well over a billion pounds of copper — in a safe jurisdiction no less — that’s a bit of a surprise.

The company is aggressively prepping that resource for a sale and, as you’re about to see, the value it’s building stands to make an eventual takeout very profitable indeed.

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Historic Copper Producer Set To Be Reborn

US Copper’s Moonlight-Superior copper project is located in Plumas County in northeast California.

The property has quite a bit of old mining infrastructure on it, as the old Superior and Engels mines produced 161 million pounds of 2.2% copper between 1915 and 1930, at which point the impact of the Great Depression shuttered both operations.

Placer-Amex tried to resuscitate the area beginning in 1962 with work that included more than 400 holes of drilling that outlined the Moonlight deposit in the area.

However, Placer dropped the property in 1994 to focus on gold, and the project then passed through a series of junior owners between 2004 and 2011.

US Copper acquired key claims in the area, including the old Superior and Engels mines, in 2013 and then, in 2018, added Moonlight.

And while this property took several years to pull together, the company is hitting the gas in 2021 to get it “takeout ready.”

A World-Class Copper Resource

US Copper has a great base to start from at Moonlight-Superior.

NI 43-101 compliant resource estimates peg its global indicated resources at 857,000 tonnes copper and 18 million ounces silver and its inferred resources at 293,000 tonnes of copper and nine million ounces silver.

A preliminary economic assessment estimates that, all by itself, Moonlight has an after-tax net present value, discounted at 8%, of $179 million, and that’s using a $3.15/lb. price for copper (compared to current trading levels around $4.30).

That valuation is more than 10 times US Copper’s current market cap.

And yet it excludes key value increments that the company is working to quantify right now:

• An “oxide cap” at Moonlight that was excluded from this PEA — recent metallurgical tests indicate that an operator could profitably mine this portion of the deposit as well

• Significant potential gold credits at Moonlight, which were also excluded from this PEA due to a lack of assay data density. (Silver and gold made up almost 20% of Superior and Engels’ historic mined value.)

• Historic drilling that returned high-grade copper intervals, which could point the way to an economics-boosting starter pit

• The potential that further exploration and development at Superior and Engels could allow US Copper to generate an even more robust, property-wide PEA

And then there’s this: Using $4.00 copper, Moonlight’s post-tax NPV more than triples to $653 million.

Add it all up, and you have a resource large enough, and potentially profitable enough, to attract interest from large copper producers.

In A Safe Jurisdiction With Excellent Infrastructure

Moonlight-Superior’s attractiveness as a takeout target is enhanced by its U.S. location.

In a world where major copper producers like Chile and Peru are voting in leftist governments with announced intentions to partially nationalize their mining sectors, major producers will likely increasingly be willing to pay a premium for projects in mining jurisdictions that respect property rights.

Granted, California has a reputation for tight environmental regulations, but support for mining tends to vary across the state, and Plumas County’s populace is strongly supportive of mining.

Several mines have permitted successfully in the state and are operating today.

Combine that local support with Moonlight’s low strip ratio, favorable rock type and pre-existing infrastructure, and this project’s odds of getting greenlighted should make it attractive to potential suitors.

Prepping For A Lucrative Takeout

US Copper’s goal now is to prove up and expand Moonlight-Superior’s resources and boost its economics by outlining a starter pit that builds on those historic, higher-grade intervals.

Based on both the short-term and long-term supply-demand dynamics outlined above, this company is a potential star that the market has missed so far.

But with drilling to boost that starter pit underway at Moonlight and growing resource nationalism likely spurring U.S. interest in domestic copper supplies (it’s a net importer of the red metal), US Copper looks radically underpriced.

For those looking to maximize profits on a secular copper bull market, owning US Copper at or near current levels could prove a very lucrative trade.

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To Learn More about US Copper Corp.