TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Shares in Toronto-based junior Chariot Resources rose 12,5% on Thursday, after a group of shareholders announced a day earlier they would launch a campaign to have the firm's board replaced.

“Concerned” shareholders Lukas Lundin and Brian Edgar believe the current board of Chariot has not done enough to progress the company's flagship Mina Justa copper project, in Peru, and that the board is responsible for a “consistent undervaluation” of the company by the market.

Lundin's Lundin Mining owns about 17% of Chariot, after acquiring the investment when it bought Rio Narcea mines in 2007.

Chariot is scheduled to hold its annual shareholders meeting on September 4, and the dissident shareholders have nominated a new slate of directors, including Lundin and several others that are affiliated with his group of companies.

“With copper prices on the rise, the time to act is now. We cannot stand to miss another opportunity to improve the market’s valuation of our company.

“Shareholders cannot afford to let current management remain in control and potentially miss what appears to be the start of another period of relatively high copper prices,” Lundin said in a statement.

“The timely development of the project is integral to creating shareholder value."

Chariot filed a feasibility study for its 70%-owned Mina Justa project in June this year.

Over an 11,5-year operating life, the mine is expects to produce 1,06-billion pounds of copper in cathodes, by vat leaching, plus about 1,64 million tons of concentrates containing 1,32-billion pounds of payable copper, 16-million ounces of payable silver and a minor amount of payable gold, from the concentrator.

Average annual production is forecast at 244,5-million pounds of copper a year.

The dissident shareholder group has nominated Colin Benner, Donald Charter, Richard Clark, Wojtek Wodzicki, Lundin and Edgar for election to Chariot's board.

If successfully elected, Lundin “has personally made a commitment to bring all his resources to bear to see that that the Marcona copper project gets the attention of the finest technical people and consultants available to bring the project, as rapidly as possible, to bankable feasibility and, if warranted, to production, for the benefit of all of its shareholders.”

Chariot Resources and its joint-venture partners, Korea Resources Corporation (owned by the Korean government) and LS-Nikko Copper, bought the Marcona property, on which Mina Justa sits, from diversified miner Rio Tinto  late 2004.

The project joint venture also signed a ten-year offtake agreement to sell up to 70% of cathode production and 90% of concentrate produced at Mina Justa to LS-Nikko.

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