US Copper CorpU
US Copper Corp (TSXV: USCU) controls approximately 13 square miles (7,053 acres) of patented and unpatented federal mining claims in the Lights Creek Copper District, Plumas County, northeastern California -- essentially the entire historic mining district, roughly 85 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada. The flagship Moonlight-Superior project comprises three deposits (Moonlight, Superior, Engels) containing both copper sulphide and copper oxide mineralization. On 6 January 2025 the company announced a Preliminary Economic Assessment: post-tax NPV(7%) of US$1.075 billion, post-tax IRR of 23%, initial capital of US$956 million, a 5.3-year payback, and a 14-year mine life via conventional open-pit mining with dual processing (a flotation circuit for sulphide ore, a heap-leach circuit for oxide/transition ore) -- projected life-of-mine production of approximately 1.8 billion pounds of copper plus 12,000,000 oz silver and 63,000 oz gold as flotation byproducts, at an all-in sustaining cost of US$2.51/lb Cu on a US$4.15/lb Cu base-case price. The company also holds the earlier-stage Black Warrior (Esmeralda County, Nevada), Timore and Warren Whiteside (Ontario) properties, none with an economic study and none driving company stage.
Notable vs. Peers
- Jurisdiction risk score of 6/10 is meaningfully riskier than the peer average of 7.7/10.
- Trading within 7% of its 52-week low — weak recent price momentum.
Lifecycle Milestones
Not in place: mill, grid power. Not yet determined: tailings facility.
Jurisdiction (40%)6/10
California: Fraser PPI 2024 is 25.66 of 100 (rank 68 of 82; not rated in the 2025 survey), which maps to 6 on this site's scale. The Moonlight-Superior project is in Plumas County, northeastern California: US rule of law and established mining law, but California's CEQA environmental permitting is historically slower and more stringent than Nevada's.
Infrastructure (40%)3.6/10
No confirmed mill, confirmed road access, and no confirmed grid power at Moonlight-Superior Copper Project, Plumas County, California, USA; tailings facility not yet researched, counted at a neutral 5/10 until established.
Nearby producing mine (20%)Not yet researched
No producing mine within 50 km in our reference list (nearest listed: Florida Canyon (Integra Resources Corp.), 219 km). That list doesn't cover every mining district yet, so a longer distance isn't scored as remote.
Acquisition Susceptibility
A relative ranking of how closely this company matches the profile of juniors that have actually been acquired — not a probability, and not a reason to buy. Acquisitions are rare: only a few dozen significant deals happen a year across a universe of thousands of juniors, so even a high score here describes a long shot. The strongest signal in the research, a producer that already owns part of the company, is scored from its disclosed strategic shareholders. A producer that is a joint-venture or earn-in partner on the project, rather than a shareholder, isn't captured yet.
How this score is built
- Disclosed pending dealSub-score: Not scored
No pending acquisition or merger disclosed (checked)
Not scored: having no deal in flight isn't held against a company.
Weight 26.25% - Producer's strategic stakeSub-score: Not scored
No producer holds a disclosed stake on file (holder register researched) See holders
Not scored: most juniors that do get bought had no prior toehold, so a missing stake says little either way.
Weight 25% - Distance to a producing mineSub-score:0/10
Nearest producing mine: Florida Canyon (Integra Resources Corp.), 219 km
10 next to a producing mine, 8 at 20 km, 5 at 50 km, 0 beyond 200 km.
Weight 22.5% · 46% here - Lifecycle stageSub-score:6/10
Stage: Preliminary Economic Assessment
Feasibility and permitting score 10, where deals cluster, and production 5.5; earlier stages score less, down to 1 at grassroots.
Weight 15% · 31% here - JurisdictionSub-score:6/10
United States: jurisdiction score 6/10
Our jurisdiction score, used as is: higher means lower political and permitting risk.
Weight 6.75% · 14% here - CommoditySub-score:8/10
Primary commodity: Copper
Gold 10, copper 8, silver 5, nickel and uranium 4, others 2: most majors' deals are for gold.
Weight 4.5% · 9% here
Weight is each input's share of the full score. “Here” is its share of this company's score: inputs that aren't scored are left out and the rest re-weighted, never counted as zero.
Cash not yet researched (counted as $0)
EV/NPV of 0.01x sits in the 0th percentile among 19 pea-stage copper peers ranked on EV/NPV, despite a jurisdiction score of 6/10 -- high enough that jurisdiction risk alone doesn't obviously explain the discount. Not explained by this mechanical screen: either a mispricing, or a risk the screen can't see (a jurisdiction issue this score doesn't capture, or some other factor entirely) -- a separate, more speculative case with no identified resolution catalyst, not the jurisdiction-risk pattern. See this company's own profile page for any completed, cited research into why it trades at a discount, where that research exists. Its cash figure is not yet researched, so it is counted as $0 in the EV, as on the Enterprise Value card.
No researched, cited finding on file yet for what specifically makes this company cheap vs. its peers. Flagged by the mechanical screen above; a real research pass hasn't reached this company yet.
A relative screen, not a probability and not a reason to buy. This flags companies trading unusually cheap on EV/NPV (market cap plus debt minus cash, per dollar of attributable study NPV) vs. peers of the same lifecycle stage and commodity, for a real, identifiable reason (a jurisdiction risk, a specific dispute, an incident, a financing gap) that may or may not ever resolve favorably. "Unexplained" candidates carry no identified driver at all -- a more speculative bucket than a named catalyst. The year chip is the study behind the NPV; amber means it is more than 5 years old (still the study on file, so it stays in this screen).
Your Rankings
Management Team
30+ years in the investment industry. Leads US Copper Corp's advancement of the Moonlight-Superior Copper Project in Plumas County, California toward a Pre-Feasibility Study (targeted fall 2026) and permitting.
30-year business career; CFO and director of US Copper Corp.
Non-Executive Director of US Copper Corp. Former Vice President of Exploration for Cominco American.
Chartered Accountant with more than 20 years of experience with publicly-traded companies.
Insiders, Investors & Smart Money
Notable shareholders and insiders whose involvement is worth knowing about, plus what we're seeing from institutional/large-investor activity.
No smart-money tracking (institutional/large-investor activity) for this miner yet — this is a planned feature, not live data.
No notable insiders tracked for this miner yet.
Reports, Presentations & Documents
US Copper controls about 13 square miles (7,053 acres) of patented and unpatented claims covering essentially the whole historic Lights Creek copper district in Plumas County, California, about 85 miles north-west of Reno. Its 100%-owned Moonlight-Superior project comprises the Moonlight, Superior and Engels deposits, and a preliminary economic assessment announced on 6 January 2025 gives a post-tax NPV (7%) of US$1.075 billion, a 23% post-tax IRR, initial capital of US$956 million and a 14-year mine life, with an all-in sustaining cost of US$2.51/lb of copper at a base-case copper price of US$4.15/lb. A pre-feasibility study was being prepared for the fall of 2026, alongside the start of permitting, and locked-cycle testwork in June 2026 produced a 24% copper concentrate at 91% recovery from the Superior zone. The company also holds the earlier-stage Black Warrior property in Nevada and the Timore and Warren Whiteside properties in Ontario.