Largo adds copper and PGMs at Maracás Menchen: margin and plant-use lens for mine teams
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Largo’s shares jumped almost 15% after Brazil’s National Mining Agency approved production and sale of copper, PGMs, nickel and cobalt as by-products from the Maracás Menchen vanadium mine in Bahia, enabling a copper-PGM concentrate stream alongside vanadium and ilmenite. The company will use its existing vanadium plant and ilmenite flotation infrastructure rather than build a standalone circuit, moving from industrial-scale test work to ramp-up and commercialisation. Management expects copper-PGM concentrate margins to exceed those of ilmenite, but has not yet disclosed production or sales guidance.
Technical Brief
- Brazil’s National Mining Agency approval explicitly covers copper, PGMs, nickel and cobalt by-products from Maracás Menchen.
- Largo is integrating by-product recovery into the existing vanadium plant plus ilmenite flotation line, avoiding new circuits.
- Industrial-scale test work has already been completed on the copper-PGM concentrate using operating infrastructure.
- Ore feed remains unchanged, with additional value extracted from minerals previously passing through the plant unmonetised.
- Regulatory clearance enables sale of nickel and cobalt streams, not just copper-PGM concentrate.
- Market capitalisation reached about $108 million at a share price of $0.80 following the announcement.
- No production, sales or revenue guidance has been disclosed, leaving by-product contribution to life-of-mine economics uncertain.
- For other multi-commodity operations, this illustrates incremental revenue potential from retrofitting by-product recovery to existing plants.
Our Take
With Largo’s market capitalisation around $108 million and a single-day share move of nearly 15%, the share-price response suggests that multi-commodity potential at Maracás Menchen could be disproportionately material to the company’s valuation compared with larger diversified copper producers such as those at Escondida or Collahuasi mentioned in the dataset.
In our database of 1284 Mining stories, copper items tagged to Latin America often centre on large-scale Chilean assets, so a Bahia-based polymetallic play combining vanadium, copper and PGMs stands out as one of the relatively few Brazil-focused diversification stories rather than pure iron ore or gold coverage.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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