Insight
The cost of stream financing for copper miners
Report summary
Project financing through streaming and royalty contracts was fairly inconsequential in 2004. Since then, these contracts have cumulatively injected US$10.3 billion into the mining sector. When considering mines affected by a streaming or NSR contract (roughly 5% of our copper mine coverage, or 2Mlb) we conclude that at the C1 cash cost level, the inclusion of streaming contracts results in a 15c/lb paid Cu increase in costs due to the lower net revenue received from precious metals.
Table of contents
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Executive summary
- Valuation and cost of stream and NSR financing
- Streaming and NSR contracts have become less profitable for providers
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Valuations suggest streaming is increasingly attractive for producers
- A positive shift in the cost of capital for miners
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The impact of stream finance is relatively small on the global cost curve
- Copper Mine Cost Model (CuMAM) and adding stream/royalty contracts into a scenario
- Sensitivity to the inclusion of an NSR royalty or streaming contract
- Conclusions and outlook
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Appendix
- Background – Streams/royalty agreements, an alternative form of financing
- A brief history of share price performance of streaming/royalty companies compared to copper and gold miners
Tables and charts
This report includes 10 images and tables including:
- Base case metal price assumptions
- Bear case metal price assumptions
- Bull case metal price assumptions
- Valuations for 31 streaming and royalty contracts – valued under our base case scenario
- The cost of stream financing for copper miners: Image 1
- Degree of contract leverage to metal price changes (Bull versus Bear case scenario)
- Relationship between life of contract (LoC) yields and capital raised from 2004 until 2015
- C1 cash cost sensitivity for mines affected by stream financing
- C3 cost sensitivity for mines affected by streaming and royalty financing
- Indexed price performance of the major stream/royalty financiers compared with copper and gold miners
What's included
This report contains:
