In the ongoing development of its flagship Mumbezhi copper project in Zambia, copper and lithium developer Prospect Resources has executed an investment agreement with copper miner First Quantum Minerals (FQM) to raise new equity proceeds of A$15.2-million.

The FQM investment, which takes the miner’s shareholding in Prospect to 15%, offers significant advantages to both parties, with FQM set to work closely with Prospect as a technical partner across future exploration and evaluation workstreams for Prospect’s 85%-owned Mumbezhi project in north-west Zambia.

Prospect has agreed to apply at least $2.5-million of the amount raised towards agreed exploration activity at Mumbezhi, outside the Nyungu Central target area.

The FQM partnership enhances Prospect’s capacity to accelerate exploration across the wider Mumbezhi project area, fast-track future development scenarios with experienced input and leverage FQM’s regional geological expertise and proven approach to resource growth.

“The FQM strategic investment offers us considerable funding runway, coupled with serious regional exploration expertise, to continue advancing our planned exploration of Mumbezhi,” says Prospect MD and CEO Sam Hosack.

As part of the FQM investment, a technical working group will be created to guide the exploration and development of the Mumbezhi project.

Prospect highlights that FQM possesses vast regional expertise as a substantial and long-established copper explorer and producer in Zambia, and globally, with a portfolio including two owned and operated copper mining and processing operations in Zambia – the Sentinel and Kansanshi copper mines. Combined, these two operations produced a total of 402 000 t of copper-in-concentrate during 2024.

Mumbezhi is located in the same regional geological setting as FQM’s Sentinel operations, reinforcing the technical alignment between the companies and the potential for scalable copper discovery, notes Prospect.

“Bringing FQM into the fold as both a strategic cornerstone shareholder and technical partner offers exceptional value-accretive opportunities for both parties,” he adds.

FQM has also invested significantly in ramping up its copper smelting capacity in Zambia, including the recent Kansanshi S3 expansion, with capacity now standing at over 400 000 t/y of copper.

“Gaining access to FQM’s breadth of regional expertise to complement Prospect’s current multi-disciplinary exploration strategy, Prospect is well placed to continue identifying further regional prospects, make targeted new discoveries and add potential new copper tonnage to the existing Mumbezhi mineral resource estimate (MRE) at a far greater rate,” says Hosack.

FQM’s investment “strongly validates” Prospect’s conviction for scale at Mumbezhi, as well as 2024 works which recently culminated in the delivery of a significant maiden 515 000 t contained copper mineral resource across just the Nyungu Central and Kabikupa deposits, he adds.

The investment also demonstrates a robust belief in the long-term growth potential on offer across the broader Mumbezhi tenure, which covers two granted mining licences, notes Hosack.

Second Phase Drilling Underway

In mid-May, Phase 2 drilling at Mumbezhi, comprising about 50 diamond boreholes and 140 exploratory aircore drill holes, for a total of about 18 000 m, was started.

Mumbezhi covers about 356 km2 of highly prospective tenure, from which Prospect delivered a maiden Joint Ore Reserves Committee-reportable MRE of 107.2-million t of 0.5% copper for 514 600 t of contained copper.

This campaign is designed to test and extend the mineral resources knowledge of Nyungu Central and Kabikupa. It also covers scope exploration drilling of regional targets defined by geophysics and geochemistry during the Phase 1 campaign.

“The Phase 2 programme has been designed to validate the significant potential for a material, large-scale resource at Mumbezhi. As well as targeting extension of the existing deposits at Nyungu Central and Kabikupa, our Phase 2 drilling is set to test further key regional targets at Nyungu North, Nyungu South and West Mwombezhi,” says Hosack.

The Phase 2 drilling is set to be supported by airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveying

proposed over potentially mineralised corridors defined by Prospect in 2024, along with

ground-based induced polarisation geophysics, which Hosack says, proved pivotal for targeting of Mumbezhi during 2024.