A drill rig at the Danvers target in Nunavut. Credit: White Cliff Minerals
Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is investing A$8.7 million ($6.2 million) in the early-stage Nunavut-focused copper explorer White Cliff Minerals (ASX: WCN; US-OTC: WCMLF) for a 13.5% stake. Shares rose.
White Cliff is advancing its Rae project, which doesn’t have a resource or an economic study, and where drilling over the past year has returned strong results pointing to the potential for a significant red metal system, part of a historical copper area. Rae is about 75 km west of the hamlet of Kugluktuk in western Nunavut.
“Hancock Prospecting’s decision to invest is a major milestone for White Cliff and powerful third-party validation of what we are building at Rae,” White Cliff Managing Director Troy Whittaker said in a release on Tuesday. “We have spent the past two seasons demonstrating that Rae can deliver exceptional grades across a mineralized system with genuine district-scale potential.”
White Cliff shares gained almost 12% to A1¢ apiece on Tuesday in Sydney, for a market capitalization of A$53.3 million. The stock has traded in a 12-month range of A1¢ to A3¢.
Critical metal moves
Under the terms of the deal, Hancock will buy almost 516 million White Cliff shares at 1.7¢ each. Proceeds will go towards expanding drilling at Rae and accelerating progress towards an initial resource at the project’s main Danvers target, White Cliff said.
Hancock’s investment in the junior comes as copper prices hover near historic highs. It follows other strategic investments in critical metal companies over the past few years, such as Arafura Rare Earths (ASX: ARU), Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX: BRE) last year and Titan Minerals’ Linderos copper project in Ecuador in 2024.
Copper traded at about US$6.35 per lb. Tuesday, after hitting record highs above US$6.70 per lb. last week amid tightening supply and expectations for growing demand from power grids, data centres and electrification.
Remote, high-grade
Rae is located in Nunavut’s Kitikmeot region, which would host the proposed federally backed Grays Bay Road and Port Project connecting the Arctic Ocean with an all-season road into the Northwest Territories.
One of the strongest assays returned from Danvers was reported in June, when hole DAN26012 cut 7.6 metres grading 11.38% copper from 152.4 metres depth.
Also strong was hole DAN25005 which returned 13.7 metres at 7.70% copper from about 61 metres depth, the company reported in May 2025.
