The company listed in 2007 as China Yunnan Copper Australia with Yunnan Copper, partially owned by Chinalco, as its cornerstone investor but changed its name to Chinalco Yunnan Copper Resources (CYU) last year after strengthening its relationship with the Chinalco group.

CYU is the only offshore listed exploration company to carry the Chinalco name.

Despite the recognisable name, Beckton said it created the perception CYU was majority-owned by Chinalco when the company was only 21.3% Chinese-owned.

“We’re a normal Aussie junior with a Chinese cornerstone,” Beckton said.

“We don’t overtrump the relationship.”

Beckton said there was no difference between CYU and fellow copper play Sandfire Resources, which is 15.8%-owned by Korean steelmaker POSCO.

He said CYU was around 70% Australian-owned with the remainder of the company held by institutions.

Beckton said aside from the name, there were other advantages to having Yunnan as its cornerstone investor.

“They won’t let us fail,” he said.

However, he said the investment probably made the company takeover-proof and would be unlikely to attract a premium.

Beckton said a possible scenario in the future could see the company helping out Yunnan/Chinalco with personnel and expertise on its own projects in exchange for a minority interest.

CYU also has top-tier partners for its Chilean projects in Xstrata Copper and Rio Tinto.

Beckton just returned from a year living in Santiago, which he described as the global copper hub.

Chile is the most explored country in the world for copper and Beckton described it as “Latin America for beginners”

He said it was not a cheap place to operate but it was “high risk, high reward”

CYU is in joint ventures with Rio on the Palmani, Caramasa and Candelabro projects and working with Xstrata at Humitos.

The company also has the Mary Kathleen JV with Goldsearch near Mount Isa in Queensland, where a maiden inferred resource is nearing completion.

The project is prospective for copper, gold, rare earth elements, uranium and thorium.

Beckton said the maiden resource would be carried by copper but would include neodymium and thorium.

He said the resource would be open and there was the potential for a high-tonnage deposit.

While the Mount Isa region is well-known for its copper deposits, Beckton said it remained underexplored, with available land between Mount Isa and Cloncurry.

However, he blamed that on the application process, which he said was in “crisis”

Beckton said there was more and more paperwork involved in the approvals process in the mining states of Queensland and Western Australia, and even South Australia was taking a slight step backwards.

He also complained that the two years which companies can hold tenements before relinquishing them was too quick – compared to Chile, where there was no timeframe.

“The country is pegged wall to wall because you don’t have to surrender it,” Beckton said.

But he said the Chilean government was reviewing that and was looking to follow the Australian model.

Beckton said another difference between the two countries was the exploration spend.

According to Beckton, in Chile 75% of exploration expenditure came from the major miners, including BHP Billiton, Rio and Anglo American, with BHP’s budget for Latin American copper alone being around $US150 million ($A144.7 million) per year.

But he said the Japanese were the ones to watch in Chile due to their fast and effective investment.

Beckton said the deposits in Chile were lower grade – less than 0.5% copper – but had “mega tonnage”

“There’s a paradigm that a copper project has to be 1 per cent copper to be developed in Australia.”

While skills shortages impact Australian projects and costs, Beckton said it was no different in Chile.

To address the problem, he said the Chilean government were setting up TAFEs to encourage training.

One area in which Australia is ahead of Chile is equity.

“When the time is right, we’ll dual-list in Santiago,” Beckton said but stressed it would only be for political reasons.

He said there was no added value in CYU listing in Toronto.

Meanwhile, CYU also has copper projects in Laos, which have an exploration target of 100 million tonnes at 1% copper and 120 grams per tonne silver.

The projects are old mines from French colonial times.

“It’s a model I like – drilling out old mines,” Beckton said.

He said the goal was to be in production within two years from a small tonnage, small cashflow operation with a mine life of 4-6 years.

“Early production is not unrealistic,” Beckton said.

“The idea is [to have] cash flow from Laos to fund Australia and Chile.”

He said access to the projects was tough but the country was a better place to work thanks to copper-gold miner PanAust, which he described as a trailblazer.

“Laos is not for everyone,” Beckton said.

However, the company would benefit from its partnership.

“Yunnan have operations just over the [Chinese] border,” he said, adding that Yunnan built modular plants which could be easily moved around the province.

“We’ll be levering off Chinese aggression when it comes to setting up mining operations.”