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The London-listed miner, which has spent the past year consolidating its first asset in Turkey, has now completed about 60% of the construction of its sulfide expansion project at the Gediktepe mine.
“We’re on schedule and within budget to begin producing copper and zinc concentrates from mid-2026, with full commercial output targeted by the end of June,” Artem Volynets told Fastmarkets on Monday October 27.
Gediktepe was acquired last year from Lidya Madencilik Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim Şirketi, a subsidiary of Istanbul-based conglomerate Çalık Holding.
According to Volynets, Gediktepe is a volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit with a clear vertical metal zoning. ACG has so far mined and leached the oxide cap, producing gold and silver at low cost. That upper layer will be mostly exhausted by the end of 2026, after which mining will move into the deeper sulfide zone, rich in copper and zinc with gold and silver by-products.
To process this material, ACG is building a new flotation plant, now about 60% complete and on schedule to start up in mid-2026. This will mark the company’s shift from being a precious-metals producer to a fully fledged copper and zinc miner, Volynets said.
With gold prices at record highs, ACG currently generates robust cash from its gold and silver operations, particularly given a cost base around $1,100 per ounce.
“Our free cash flow this year is $70-75 million, if not more,” Volynets said. “This certainly helps in the main project that we’re executing at Gediktepe while we transition to the production of copper and zinc concentrate.”
Once copper production has ramped-up, ACG expects output of roughly 25,000 tonnes per year of copper-equivalent. At current consensus metal prices, this could translate to free cash flow of around $100 million per year. The mine’s low-cost position keeps it in the first quartile of the global copper cost curve, Volynets noted, which would provide resilience even in volatile markets.
ACG also plans to unveil a technical solution to process 3.5 million tpy of high-grade transitional ore, currently stored as waste at Gediktepe, potentially extending gold and silver production beyond 2026.
“There are about three-and-a-half million tonnes of this high-grade waste. The costs are already incurred, so all we need to do is to find a good technical solution to process this ore,” Volynets said, adding that an update to the market is expected “before the end of the year, if not sooner.”
The company has already secured buyers for its upcoming copper and zinc concentrates at Gediktepe.
As part of the financing for the Gediktepe acquisition last year, Glencore has an offtake agreement for 100% of Gediktepe’s copper concentrate, while Traxys serves as the offtaker and marketing agent for the zinc concentrate.
Volynets was the CEO of En+ Group in 2010-13 and head of strategy at Russia’s largest aluminium producer, Rusal, in 2007-10. He said that ACG is now pursuing multiple copper acquisition opportunities while it seeks further growth.
ACG’s M&A approach is guided by three rules, he said: work multiple deals to secure one; assume nothing until it is complete; and ensure that each acquisition can stand on its own financially.
He added that more than half of ACG’s 10 active opportunities are located within a range of two to three hours’ flight-time from the company’s Turkish operations. The company’s regional focus remains the Tethyan Copper Belt, spanning Turkey, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, although ACG is also evaluating selected assets in Africa and South America.
But the company has no plan to move further downstream in copper, Volynets said, noting that negative smelting margins and global overcapacity make downstream investment unattractive.
“Our margin upstream is 60%,” he said. “You’re lucky in downstream to get [a margin in] the double digits.”
Volynets remains optimistic about long-term copper fundamentals, pointing to supply constraints and broad-based demand growth from construction, electrification and data infrastructure.
Supply, meanwhile, remains constrained because many expected projects are not yet approved for production.
“Any big copper discovery in the next few years [will] not make any near-term addition to supply,” he told Fastmarkets. “Half of new copper supply is supposed to come from mines which are not fully approved… so there will be further constraints on supply.”
ACG was set up as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), listing in October 2022 and since then transitioning into a fully operational, independent mining company.
Despite a 160% rise in its share price in recent months, Volynets believes that significant upside remains while ACG transitions into a diversified copper miner. “In my opinion, we still have probably 200-300% upside, using a base-case scenario,” he said.
Volynets’ ambition is for ACG to become a multi-asset copper producer across several jurisdictions by the end of the decade.
“In three to five years’ time, the goal is for ACG to be a large global company which has three to five assets – I hope five, rather than three – across key producing copper regions in the world,” he said. “We want to trade on a par with our competitors, and we’ll reward our shareholders and investors.”
In Hotter Commodities, special correspondent Andrea Hotter covers some of the biggest stories impacting the natural resources sector. Read more coverage on our dedicated Hotter Commodities page here.