The playbook — copper · August 28, 2026
McEwen Copper lands US$240M loan to push Los Azules toward decision
A high-cost bridge loan carries the Argentine copper project toward a mid-2027 investment decision — but the full ~US$4B still isn't assembled.
McEwen Copper just borrowed money. On August 27, 2026 the company closed a US$240 million term loan to keep its Los Azules copper project — a large deposit in San Juan province, Argentina — moving toward a Final Investment Decision, the moment a company formally commits to building a mine. The loan runs four years at 12% interest a year, with warrants priced at $40 a share. The two biggest lenders are Sprott, a specialist resource lender, at US$112 million, and Chairman Rob McEwen personally, at US$85 million — together 82% of the loan. The rest of the syndicate is US$43 million.
This is a money story, not a rock story. There are no new drill results here, no grades, no assays. The only drilling mentioned is more than 5,600 metres of geotechnical and condemnation work — the kind you do to check ground stability, not to find copper. Los Azules is a genuine, advanced project: the Feasibility Study is done and it has RIGI approval, an Argentine incentive framework that eases tax and currency rules for big investments. The team is credentialed — McEwen built Goldcorp from roughly $50 million to over $8 billion, and Managing Director Michael Meding helped turn around Barrick’s Veladero mine nearby. Copper itself gained 6.3% over the past three months and the copper equity index rose 9.4%, reflecting broad sector gains, though MUX.V price data wasn’t available to measure the stock against it.
Now the honest part. That 12% rate plus a 5% prepayment fee is expensive for a pre-production asset, and it signals cheaper institutional project finance isn’t in place yet. The full build needs roughly US$4 billion, and about US$3.17 billion of that is initial capex — money not yet assembled. No major miner with a balance sheet big enough to fund it alone sits in the ownership group. And Los Azules is greenfield: no production history, with first copper cathode targeted for 2030, subject to financing and permits. Water concessions and some infrastructure permits remain outstanding. The company has flagged the EPCM contractor selection and completion of the FID engineering work — about 73% of it remained undone at June 30 — both targeted for Q4 2026. The Final Investment Decision and full debt financing close are expected mid-2027.