PEAK ASSET: MORNING WRAP 23 January: ASX 200 futures were down six points or 0.1 per cent to 8804 | Shares to slip; Morningstar warns ASX among world’s priciest | As the copper boom unfolds, Caravel has the scale to stand out from the crowd |

As the copper boom unfolds, Caravel has the scale to stand out from the crowd

• After years as a mine builder, Don Hyma is planning his next major development at copper junior Caravel Minerals
• Adani-backed project will be one of the largest copper mines in Australia once built
• Stock is surging as copper price rises to record highs on supply shortage

Don Hyma’s name is well known in the mining industry.

But the well-spoken Canadian is an unusual figure to be seen at the small end of town.

Flip through the pages of his tome-like resume and the bounty of experience is palpable – with boots both on the ground and in the C-suite at Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO), Fortescue (ASX:FMG) and Mitsui.

Take a step back and two decades at Falconbridge, now part of Glencore, including a role spearheading the construction of the massive concentrator at the Collahuasi copper mine in Chile – one of the world’s three largest copper producers.

That mine is now at the centre of two of the biggest (proposed) M&A deals in mining history – Anglo American and Glencore each own 44% alongside a subsidiary of Mitsui, and Anglo shareholders have already approved a US$53bn tie-up with the majority owner of the nearby Quebrada Blanca mine Teck, while Glencore is in the cross-hairs of Rio.

Unlike many junior company heads, Hyma is a mine and infrastructure builder. That was one of the attributes that made the unconventional union with micro cap copper developer Caravel Minerals (ASX:CVV) a marriage made in heaven when he parlayed his role as a technical advisor into the managing director’s chair in 2023.

Caravel’s main game is a giant low grade porphyry around 90 minutes’ drive inland from Perth, which stands to be the largest new copper mine developed in Australia since OZ Minerals completed construction of the now BHP (ASX:BHP) owned Carrapateena in 2019.

And with copper prices at record levels in the orbit of US$13,000/t, the timing of a new definitive feasibility study due later this year could not be better.

“We’re seeing supply disruptions of these old mines around the world and at the same time, we’re seeing demand in copper over the next 10 years like we’ve never seen demand before,” Hyma said.

“And it is largely driven by decarbonisation and renewables and things like AI centres and wind turbines, electric vehicles, et cetera – things that didn’t exist 25 years ago are very much underpinning the forward looking demand.

“So we’re seeing this perfect storm of declining supply and very robust demand.”

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Source: Stockhead