Lodestar is hunting the critical minerals an electrified world needs

A clean energy future will need vast amounts of copper. At ASX-listed explorer Lodestar Minerals, an unusual duo – a former credit trader and French geologist-turned-CEO – is hunting Chile’s desert for deposits others have overlooked. 

Maybe the desire to find a treasure had always been in Ross Taylor’s blood. Growing up in Perth, he didn’t need to drive far to feel the buzz of those chasing riches on the vast red mining lands of Western Australia. Little did Taylor know that one day he would be an explorer himself. 

Now chair at Lodestar Minerals, a small ASX-listed resources exploration company, Taylor spent most of his early career in the finance industry. At big banks in New York, London and Tokyo, he managed teams of traders who scoured the globe for obscure yet highly profitable opportunities. 

 Taylor’s specialty was illiquid credit – private debt known to be tricky to find, sell or turn into cash. His most memorable deal: refinancing Michael Jackson’s half of the Beatles catalogue for US$300 million. 

“I like the hunt,” says Taylor.

“I like looking for things, and I like finding something that is overlooked but that you can extract value from.” 

At Lodestar Minerals he follows the same philosophy. After the global financial crisis, Taylor took up a major share in the company, became its chair and moved his family back to Perth. Lodestar’s mission back then was to find mineable gold in Western Australia. 

Taylor had bigger plans. He decided to take the venture off the beaten track and into places that few others looked to enter. Today, Lodestar Minerals, in an unusual move for an ASX junior, is pursuing large-scale opportunities in three countries: gold in Western Australia, copper in Chile, and rare earths in the US. 

As Lodestar reorganised its business earlier this year following the departure of its CEO, Taylor travelled to Chile to review the company’s growing operations there. The visit reinforced his view that the strongest candidate for the top job was already within the company: Coraline Blaud, then head of exploration. The French exploration geologist had played a central role in Lodestar’s expansion overseas. 

“She’s a dynamo,” says Taylor, praising Blaud’s energy, expertise and people skills. “She put the teams together. She speaks English, French and Spanish, and she understands geology.” 

The recent surge in commodity prices helps. Copper has hit record highs, while demand for materials needed to power the renewable energy future and strategic interest in rare earths have intensified concerns over future supply. 

“We found ourselves in a really good position,” says Taylor. “All commodity prices are going up, including gold, copper and rare earth.” 

The copper challenge 

Demand for copper alone, used in anything from solar panels to electric cars, is predicted to rise by 50% from 2025 to 2040, with a likely shortfall of 10 million metric tonnes because mines can’t keep up, according to S&P Global research. 

Meeting future demand will require additional mineral discoveries. High commodity prices also act as a catalyst. They make it viable for miners to eye smaller, lower-grade deposits that may have been discarded in the past. 

In Chile, Lodestar is reviving several such legacy projects. One of them is Los Loros, a stretch of coastal land surrounded by existing copper mines. The United Nations carried out the first drilling there in the 1970s and identified copper and molybdenum mineralisation. A second, short phase of exploration was undertaken by global mining company Anglo American in 2007, which identified high-grade epithermal gold mineralisation.  

Following this, the project sat idle until February 2026 when Lodestar moved in to restart the exploration with modern technologies and higher commodity prices. Exploration licences are comparatively cheap; another bonus for small companies. 

“Chile is like Western Australia was 30 years ago,” says Taylor. From the perspective of junior explorers, prospective ground remains underexplored, and competition from smaller explorers can be surprisingly limited. 

Small firms can still enjoy a first-mover advantage in Chile. The market is concentrated around mining giants like BHP, Teck or Codelco on one end and “pirquineros” on the other – artisanal miners. ASX-style, agile junior explorers like Lodestar, however, are scarce. 

“On the junior explorer side, there is a lot less competition in Chile. When you find something, the reward can be a lot higher,” says Blaud. 

Her eyes light up when she talks about field trips to the Atacama Desert, where the ground shines in different shades of green and blue from copper oxides.  

“You walk into Chile and see copper oxides, large quartz veins rich in gold or silver, just sitting there under your feet. And I’m like what do you mean that’s still there? In Western Australia this would be a hole in the ground by now.” She remembers flying home with a collection of green and blue rocks, a reminder of Chile’s extraordinary copper endowment. 

Blaud’s enthusiasm and technical knowledge complement Taylor’s financial acumen and instinct to find value in hidden corners. Setbacks are part of the hunt. A rare wildflower event in the Atacama Desert delayed drilling twice.  

An early project idea fell through; others appear much more favourable. 

Expanding the hunt 

In mid-August, Lodestar announced an option over the Pacifico copper-molybdenum project located near the Teck-Newmont joint venture Relincho deposit in Chile.  

Additionally, at Ned’s Creek in Western Australia, Lodestar has completed an extensive drilling campaign to advance the project toward a maiden gold Mineral Resource Estimate. 

In Arizona, Virgin Mountain provides exposure to a potentially significant US critical minerals opportunity, with exploration identifying high-grade heavy rare earth mineralisation. 

In those moments Taylor remembers the Wall Street trader who once approached him about Michael Jackson’s loan on the Beatles catalogue. “OK, so what do we do with it?”  

Taylor asked, then found a way to combine credit derivatives, put options, and the loan to enable a sale of the package to Sony Music. 

The same question has been guiding him and CEO Blaud ever since. The goal, they say, is not just to find something. It’s to find something they can turn into value for shareholders. 

Learn more at lodestarminerals.com.au

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