Chris Buncic

Chris Buncic is President and CEO of Condor Resources Inc. (TSXV: CN), a Canadian junior explorer with a portfolio of copper and gold-silver projects in Peru. Resource investors watch Condor for one main reason: its flagship Pucamayo project is being advanced under an earn-in agreement (a deal where a partner funds exploration spending to earn an ownership stake) with Teck Resources, one of Canada's largest mining companies. Buncic sits where a junior explorer's discovery potential meets a major's balance sheet — a structure that can deliver copper exposure without heavy shareholder dilution.

Buncic has spent more than 24 years across mining and capital markets. He helped found Ascendant Resources and, as President and CEO, led its 2016 acquisition of the El Mochito zinc-lead-silver mine in Honduras from Nyrstar NV, returning the underground operation — in near-continuous production since 1948 — to profitability, and he advanced the Lagoa Salgada project in Portugal, a VMS deposit (volcanogenic massive sulphide — metal-rich rock formed on the ancient seafloor). The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum awarded him its 2017 Canadian Young Mining Leaders Award. He later co-founded Alto Verde Copper, a Chile-focused explorer later acquired by Interra Copper, and before running companies he spent six years in institutional equity research at Cormark Securities and Mackie Research Capital.

His approach pairs an analyst's screen with an operator's discipline. At Condor he has focused the portfolio on Peruvian porphyry-style copper-gold targets (porphyries are large intrusion-related systems that host many of the world's major copper mines) and used earn-in joint ventures to fund drilling while limiting dilution — Teck can spend US$10 million over six years to earn a 75% interest in Pucamayo. A CFA charterholder with an engineering degree from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, he weighs both the geology and the financing path that gets a project drilled.

Following Condor today means tracking major-funded exploration in one of the world's top mining jurisdictions. Teck Perú has received its drilling permit (DIA — the environmental approval required in Peru) for Pucamayo Sur, where up to 6,000 metres of drilling are planned, with a second earn-in program at the Cobreorco project behind it. For investors studying how majors screen ground and how juniors conserve capital, the Condor-Teck partnership under Buncic is a working case study.