ASX investors are crying out for more copper plays but Hammer has largely been overlooked.

The company holds around 3600sqkm of ground in Queensland’s Mount Isa region with a resource of over 530,000 tonnes of copper-equivalent.

Its flagship Kalman project has a resource of 39 million tonnes at 0.53% copper, 0.27 grams per tonne gold, 0.1% molybdenum and 2.1g/t rhenium, or 1.1% copper equivalent recovered. 

The resource includes a high-grade component of 10.5Mt at 1.98% CuEq, or 0.83% copper, 0.45g/t gold, 0.22% molybdenum, 2.5g/t silver and 4.8g/t rhenium.

Drilling is underway now, aimed at updating the resource to underpin a scoping study.

On Monday, Hammer reported partial assays for one hole, which returned 124m (true width 40m) at 2.2% CuEq recovered (0.54% copper, 0.36g/t gold, 0.29% molybdenum and 5.6g/t rhenium) from 186m, including 58m (TW 20m) at 2.44% CuEqRec (1.1% copper, 0.74g/t gold and 0.16% molydenum). 

“Our program really was designed to go and convert infill areas to indicated status to enable us to complete our scoping study, so that was fantastic, and to see grades higher than predicted within the resource model gives you a bit more confidence that your resource model isn’t overly ambitious and you’re not overselling what might be there,” Hammer managing director Dan Thomas said.

The company will include some inferred resources from other nearby deposits, including Overlander, Jubilee and Lakeview, in the scoping study as part of a hub and spoke-style operation.

“Our intention is to do a scoping study that will look at a standalone development at Kalman with its own processing facility,” Thomas said.

“The processing facility will have the ability to separate a copper-gold concentrate, and then a separate molybdenum and rhenium concentrate.”

Holy moly

What sets Kalman apart from other copper deposits is the contribution of the minor metals to the revenue mix.

Thomas estimates copper-gold will account for around 60-65% of revenue with the remainder coming from the lesser-known molybdenum and rhenium, depending on metal prices.

“When you look at Kalman as just a molybdenum/rhenium play, it’s one of the top three undeveloped in the Western world,” he said. 

“The other one’s about 85km away, Merlin, then there’s another deposit somewhere that’s got slightly better grade than Kalman.

“I think there’s this whole molybdenum rhenium industry sort of bubbling in the background in Queensland that could actually – molybdenum prices doing what they’re doing – could be quite substantial.”

Molybdenum is used in stainless steel, including wind turbines, electric vehicles and solar panels.

“No one really has an appreciation for molybdenum, but the market’s actually bigger than the cobalt market,” Thomas said.

“No one really thinks about it, and historically, the prices of molybdenum have peaked and crashed on the back of people turning their molybdenum circuits on.

“That cycle was broken in about 2020 when about 10% of the world’s global supply came off at Bingham Canyon in North America.”

That saw prices surge above US$100,000 per tonne in 2023 and while China is a major supplier, molybdenum has also been subject to export controls.

The price is sitting at around US$90,000/t today and it’s now on Australia’s critical minerals list.

“It’s a fascinating space, and the prices have been really, really strong since Bingham Canyon closed,” Thomas said. 

“It’s one that no one talks about, but the prices remain strong, and I think with the current dynamic, it makes Kalman look really interesting.”

Right neighbourhood

Like New South Wales’ Cobar region, Mount Isa is one that gets talked about in the context of market consolidation.

As well as Glencore, Carnaby Resources, True North Copper and Austral Resources Australia are all active in the region.

“There’s talk that people are looking and you’re always fielding inquiries, but that’s no different than any project where you’ve got a significant metal endowment, especially with the current commodity price, and as we’ve seen, the copper options on the ground are becoming fewer and fewer,” Thomas said.

In the meantime, Hammer is expecting to receive up to A$11 million this year from Carnaby this year as part of a deal struck in 2024 over the Mount Hope project.

The company also has exploration joint ventures with South32 and Sumitomo Metal & Mining.

“One of the curses in the Mount Isa region is just how prolific copper mineralisation is there,” Thomas said.

Thomas said of just over 50 targets tested by Hammer in 13 years, more than 40 had returned intersections grading at least 1% copper and 1g/t gold.

While Hammer has many targets that remain “severely undertested”, the focus for this year is clear.

“The strategy for this year is threefold: one is to get a scoping study done at Kalman to illustrate the potential of the area and try and underpin the enterprise value per tonne of metal we have in the ground,” Thomas said.

The next priority is delineating resources at known deposits, while the third is continuing to test the deep pool of earlier stage targets.