Friedland’s Ivanhoe Electric starts drilling in Utah
Ivanhoe Electric Inc. [IE-TSX, NYSE American] has begun drilling at the historic Tintic copper-gold district in Utah after more than five years of property acquisition, digitization of old mine records and meticulous geologic mapping.
“The Tintic mining district has a storied, century-and-half-long history of high-grade silver production, dating back to the first discovery in 1869,” the company said.
Ivanhoe Electric is headed by billionaire mining magnate Robert Friedland. His previous endeavours include nickel discoveries in the Voisey’s Bay area of Newfoundland and Labrador and more recently copper mining operations in Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC assets are held by Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. [IVN-TSX, IVPAF-OTC].
Friedland is Executive Chairman of Ivanhoe Electric, which is led by President and CEO Taylor Melvin.
On June 30, 2022, Ivanhoe Electric closed an IPO that raised US$169.1 million from the sale of 14.4 million shares, priced at US$11.75 per share. The underwriters were granted a 30-day option to purchase an additional 2.16 million shares.
Ivanhoe Electric is using proceeds of the IPO to fund certain payments to acquire or maintain its mineral property rights, fund metals exploration and construct and deploy additional sets of its Typhoon electrical pulse-powered geophysical surveying transmitter technology.
The aim is to develop mineral deposits in the U.S. in order to support American supply chain independence and to deliver critical metals needed for electrification of the economy.
“We believe the United States is significantly underexplored and has the potential to yield major new discoveries of these metals,’’ the company said in a regulatory document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company’s flagship properties are the Santa Cruz Copper project in Arizona and the Tintic Copper-Gold project in Utah. “Santa Cruz is situated in a prolific mining region that hosts some of the largest copper mines in the United States,’’ the company said.
“Our high-powered, proprietary Typhoon induced polarization surveying system and Computational Geoscience Inc. software has delineated multiple large-scale anomalies comparable in size to the world-class Bingham Canyon porphyry copper-gold mine (in Australia),” Ivanhoe Electric said in a press release.
 Bingham Canyon has been producing continuously since 1906 and is commonly considered to be one of the world’s largest producers of copper and gold mines.
“With the help of Typhoon, we are looking forward to better understanding the potential porphyry sources to the historical high-grade previous and base metals mineralization at Tintic.’’
Initial exploration drilling will investigate the near-surface, historically mined, high-grade copper, gold and silver mineralization. Drill holes will continue to depth to test for the evidence of a potential porphyry copper-gold deposit as guided by multiple geological indications and by the company’s proprietary Typhoon data set. The company said it expects to execute a more extensive drilling campaign at Tintic during the spring of 2023.
On November 21, 2022, Ivanhoe Electric shares closed at $13.09 and currently trade in a 52-week range of $16.63 and $10.00.