Resources analyst Gavin Wendt said the market is changing to favour north west Queensland resource profiles.
It comes with bullish outlooks for both copper and gold.
The former was considered a bell-weather mineral and the latter a safe haven metal and together they were never seen to be complimentary Mr Wendt, the director of Minelife, said.
“Now, that is a changing scenario globally because we have seen some of our miners and internationally some gold mining companies diverging into copper. And I think there’s some sound reasons for that.
“The first reason is probably one of the logical ones because we often see situations where copper does occur with gold. So by default, a lot of gold companies with some of their operations indirectly become copper producers as well.
“The other aspect to it as well is that copper is increasingly a key component of the energy transition and all forecasts for copper suggest higher prices and exponential growth in demand.”
Main image: Gold pour at the Blackjack operation last month.
The purists shouldn’t be worried about the change in corporate apatite said Mr Wendt.
“If you are a gold company and you have the opportunity to leverage within your project portfolio copper production opportunities, you would be silly not to take advantage of those opportunities.
“Increasingly, we will see gold companies looking at the opportunity to perhaps expand their operations, not taking their focus off gold specifically, but looking to enhance the profitability, the commerciality, and also the investor appeal of what they’re doing by moving increasingly towards copper.
“Because whereas gold companies that used to have copper exposure previously were probably penalized in the market size now, I think you can almost attract a premium for having that copper exposure and offering it to investors.”
He quoted the example of Evolution Mining buying the Ernest Henry operation as successfully managing the two commodities.
“I think Evolution is a really good example of a world-class Australian gold company that has been able to take advantage of its diversification into copper and provide that diversification and upside and alternative for investors.
“The geology is well understood, the mining’s well understood the processing is well understood and they do it well. There’s certainly an advantage there.
“And look, it’s been a fantastic profit earner for the company, and I think we’re going to see more gold companies looking at potentially diversifying into copper.”