The world will need about 3.7 million tons of copper beyond existing supply to meet 2030 demand, driven by the critical metal’s malleability, conductivity, corrosion resistance and antimicrobial properties. This is equivalent to over 60 new mines, each of which could take a decade or more to reach production. This dynamic grows more severe over the longer term, with industry requiring more copper over the next 30 years than has been mined in the history of humanity to meet net-zero emissions goals, setting the stage for a massive copper deficit over the next decade.
Investors looking to capitalize on this deficit must first understand copper demand’s main drivers, each lying at the heart of the green energy transition. Here’s a breakdown, according to Visual Capitalist, of the critical metal’s global tailwind:
- Electric vehicles require 132 pounds of copper per vehicle, with the sector’s demand for the critical metal expected to post a 14-per-cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2035.
- The battery sector requires up to 540 pounds of copper per megawatt (MW), with copper demand positioned for a 21.8-per-cent CAGR through 2035.
- Solar panels require 5.5 tons of copper per MW and are forecasted to achieve an 11.9-per-cent copper demand CAGR through 2035.
- Wind turbines require about 8 tons of copper per MW and are on track for a monumental 33.1-per-cent copper demand CAGR through 2035.
- This is in addition to copper’s traditional uses in architecture, electrical wire, as well as numerous specialized applications, together representing tens of billions in market value.
These high-growth industries are running counter to the trend in copper development capital, which has almost halved since 2013, prompting a growing number of institutions to call for higher prices up to US$40,000 per ton – almost four times the price of US$10,034.20 as of June 24 – and a growing number of investors to expand their due diligence into copper projects with strong cases for trading at a discount to their potential.
Billion-ton upside with tangible market recognition
A junior miner with a data-driven case to generate leverage above and beyond copper’s tailwind is Viridian Metals (CSE:VRDN), market capitalization C$21.83 million, the largest claim holder in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Viridian is focused on developing two 100-per-cent-owned critical metals projects with potentially significant roles in the global supply chain, as reinforced by:
- An underexplored tier-one mining jurisdiction, populated by industry heavyweights such as Vale, Tata Steel and Rio Tinto, marked by the strongest level of community support chief executive officer Tyrell Sutherland, a 40-per-cent shareholder, has seen in his over 15-year career. We’ll meet him in the management section later on.
- A fully funded 2025 exploration program following a recently closed over C$2 million financing, as well as inclusion in BHP’s prestigious 2025 Xplor program, the latter affording Viridian a non-dilutive grant of C$1.1 million and access to the major miner’s unmatched industry expertise to stake and study the Seal Basin, including its Sedna project, which we’ll cover in the next section.
- Alignment with Canada’s critical minerals strategy, which will see the Federal government invest nearly C$4 billion in domestic exploration, development and production, as well as numerous other government programs representing millions in potential funding.
Investors have been recognizing the portfolio’s high conviction since Viridian went public in November 2024, lifting the junior copper stock by 69.88 per cent from C$0.259 at inception to C$0.44 as of June 24, with the company’s highly prospective land package still in the earliest stage of proving out its mineral wealth and value-creation potential.
To get a better sense of investor enthusiasm and ground it in data, let’s turn our attention to Viridian’s next project in line for exploration, explaining why it supports the stock’s long-term room to run.
The Sedna project
Viridian’s 2,600-square-kilometre (km) Sedna project is located in the Seal Basin, a sedimentary copper basin as of yet untouched by advanced exploration with hundreds of copper occurrences documented in the 1960s, 1970s and 2010s in the Geological Survey of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Mineral Occurrence Data System. Sedimentary basins host some of the largest and highest-grade copper deposits in the world, often delivering resources of more than 1 billion tons grading over 2 per cent copper. Management believes the Seal Basin, which was less than 10 per cent staked prior to their involvement, to be one of the most promising exploration regions in the country.
Sedna has yielded high-grade rock samples along a 3.6-km stretch, including copper nuggets weighing up to 300 pounds, substantiating its geological similarity to globally leading sedimentary copper deposits, such as Ivanhoe Mines’ 18,655-kiloton Kamoa-Kakula mine in the Congo and Highland Copper’s 5.7-billion-pound White Pine mine in the US.
Viridian channel samples have only bolstered Sedna’s prospectivity, motivating the junior copper company to mobilize for geological work in early June to answer fundamental questions about the source of copper mineralization, including the age of the basin, whether it’s of the marine or lake varieties, and which fluids are responsible for copper mobilization. Here are the highlight samples:
- 3.7 m at 5.3 per cent copper and 5.7 grams per ton (g/t) of silver.
- 1.4 metres at 1.5 per cent copper and 1.6 g/t silver.
Additionally, historical work adjacent to the project in the upper stratigraphy drilled 1.9 metres at 4.7 per cent copper and 42 g/t silver at the Adeline Island Showing and trenched 11 metres at 2.9 per cent copper and 46 g/t silver along the Whiskey Lake Shear, leaving the more richly mineralized lower stratigraphy untouched.
Sedna’s early exploration success also led Viridian to expand the project and stake 2,600 square km across the well-mapped basin – bringing it to 70 per cent staked – making the junior copper miner the first-mover in the region and the largest claim holder in the province, adding more than 70 known, near-surface and largely unexplored copper occurrences. Viridian plans to leverage BHP’s capabilities and allocate C$400,000-C$500,000 to increase its geological understanding of these new claims with eyes on potential partnerships with major miners.
Residing near road and power infrastructure, and diversified by a potential silver by-product – with the metal sitting near a 10-year high of US$36.31 per ounce as of June 16 – Viridian’s Sedna project is positioned to serve as the catalyst for unlocking the Seal Basin’s district-scale upside, supported by what Sutherland sees as Labrador’s “exceptional geological potential” and the basin’s “capacity to deliver significant value,” according to the staking news release.
The Kraken project
Viridian intends to carry momentum from Sedna’s likely positive news flow into late-2025 exploration at its adjacent 185-square-km Kraken copper-nickel-cobalt project, which has yielded Viridian and historical drilling of more than 4.1 per cent copper and is hosted by the same intrusions as the legendary Voisey’s Bay, whose production + reserves stand at 65 million tons grading 2.4 per cent nickel, 1.3 per cent copper and ~0.1 per cent cobalt. Another analogue, Power Metallic’s Nisk project in Quebec, recently delivered high-grade copper on historically nickel-dominant terrain, positioning the company for a near-term resource.
Similar to copper, nickel and cobalt also play critical roles in the energy transition, with both expected to enter deficits over the next decade, and the International Energy Agency estimating that the world will need at least 60 new nickel mines and 17 new cobalt mines to stand a chance at reaching net-zero emissions.
Kraken’s district-scale, polymetallic upside is backed up by more than 169 conductors totaling more than 64 km of strike length near surface. This is in addition to:
- Surface mineralization up to 2.2 per cent nickel-copper-cobalt in pods distributed over 37 km suited to Viridian’s low-cost portable drilling approach, which cuts set-up costs by 25x and mobilization costs by over 6x compared to full-sized drills, while benefitting from a less stringent permitting process.
- Viridian’s first-mover advantage as a primarily copper-focused explorer in the region, keen to replicate Power Metallic’s success at Nisk based on how the project’s copper-rich ore bodies often shift away from nickel mineralization, requiring their own set of exploration parametres.
The project’s highest-priority target, the Kraken Main Zone, encompasses a 5-km conductor founded on historical intercepts by mining majors, including Noranda Kennecott’s 8 metres grading 0.5 per cent nickel-copper-cobalt and Teck Resources’ standout 46 metres at 0.3 per cent copper-nickel-cobalt (from 2 metres).
Viridian subsequently verified these impressive historical results with maiden drilling up to 14.8 metres at 0.42 per cent copper-nickel-cobalt from bedrock surface, leaving multiple high-grade intercepts to be tested and initial down-hole electromagnetic surveying to potentially shed light on untapped prospectivity.
The junior copper miner expects to deliver a 43-drillhole exploration program at Kraken by year-end to further define high-grade copper zones, followed by a near-term maiden resource – which management believes could reach 100-300 million tons grading 0.3-0.8 per cent copper-nickel-cobalt – likely adding steam to ongoing market enthusiasm.
A leadership team optimized for exploration success
Viridian’s vastly underexplored portfolio is under the care of a leadership team with 65 per cent insider ownership and mining expertise from the field, to capital markets, to the C-Suite, granting the junior copper company a strong foundation towards converting exploration upside into significant shareholder value. Let’s meet them now:
- Tyrell Sutherland, Viridian Metals’ CEO and top investor at 40 per cent of shares outstanding, is a geologist with 15 years of experience in mineral exploration with an emphasis on Indigenous collaboration and projects in northern Canada. Sutherland was instrumental in the acquisition and initial resource growth of Auteco Minerals’ Pickle Crow mine, and served on the board of Levon Resources, owner of the largest undeveloped silver deposit in the world, during its sale to Discovery Silver. Sutherland also brings extensive experience with major miners, including as a geologist for Ivanhoe Mines and Anglogold Ashanti and as a core logger for Kirkland Lake Gold.
- Lee Bowles, chief business development officer, has built an over 25-year career at independent investment dealers in Toronto, New York and London. Bowles played a key role in building one of Canada’s top resource investment dealers and is currently focused on providing institutional equity sales coverage focused on Europe.
- Sabino Di Paolo, CPA, CA, chief financial officer (CFO), is a specialist in public and private mineral exploration companies, having served as CFO of Cornerstone Capital Resources, UrbanGold Minerals, Melkior Resources and Everton Resources, among numerous other public exploration and non-exploration companies.
- Charlene Duffett, exploration manager, hailing from Goose Bay, Labrador, has spent the past five years engaged in remote mineral exploration across northern Canada, complementing her research background in hydrothermal deposits in Labrador’s Central Mineral Belt. Duffett is a board member of She Connects, a non-profit supporting mentorship for women, and she received a 2018 Young Mining Professionals Scholarship for her contributions to the industry.
- Coulter Wright, head of government and grant funding, brings more than 25 years of corporate finance, investment and start-up experience to Viridian, including 12 years at AGF Investments as vice president and portfolio manager of the Canadian Growth Equity Fund. Wright’s strategic investment in Real Matters led him to an executive role in 2014, guiding the mortgage and insurance technology company through three acquisitions. He has served as co-founder and CFO of Charly Inc. and redPADEL since 2016 and is currently CFO of GetintheLoop Marketing.
- Alan Grujic, board member, is an innovator in the areas of engineering and finance. His track record includes the founding of Infinium Group, a boundary-pushing trading firm, Galiam Capital, a quantitative hedge fund, as well as All of Us Financial, a trading platform acquired by PayPal in 2022. The following year, Grujic stepped into advisory roles in AI and biosecurity and is currently building an AI consulting start-up.
Viridian’s top brass ties the junior miner’s value proposition together with a well-rounded skill set – one built on years of identifying and developing exploration-stage assets across the mining business cycle – optimizing investors for an outsized outcome should copper demand continue to climb as expected.
Viridian’s momentum is a trend worth following
Our due diligence can lead us to only one conclusion, and it’s that Viridian Metals’ position as Newfoundland and Labrador’s leading mineral claims holder has long-term staying power.
As we’ve delineated, this thesis is supported by the project portfolio’s data-driven, district-scale potential for harvesting exploration upside, positioning the company to become a leader in the Canadian junior copper space. Here’s a refresher on the company’s reasons for conviction:
- A target commodity in short supply, despite being integral to the global green energy transition, making price appreciation a reasonable long-term assumption.
- Over 70 copper occurrences, 169 conductors and 800 electromagnetic anomalies across a district-scale land package representing multiple years of exploration.
- Cash of C$2.6 million as of June 10 to continue nudging the market into recognizing Sedna and Kraken’s massive upside through positive news flow.
- A leadership team, highly aligned with shareholders, experienced at navigating the junior mining market in risk-on and risk-off environments.
These factors combine into a considerably de-risked investment opportunity, where the common sources of junior mining volatility – unproven assets, commodity demand, management chops – have all been thoroughly mitigated. Viridian’s institutional ownership vehemently agrees, standing at an impressive 13 per cent, suggesting that the company’s approximately 23 per cent retail ownership has made a potentially transformational investment the broader market is missing.
With no debt and a tight 50 million shares issued, plus only 9.5 million shares tied to warrants, Viridian is in a prime position to tap capital markets opportunistically, while preserving shareholder value, as an increasingly tight copper market allows it to expedite project development.
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