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Collective Mining
Collective Mining is the Ari Sussman-led mineral explorer drilling the Guayabales copper-gold project in Colombia's Middle Cauca belt.
Collective Mining
Collective Mining launched in 2020 as the expedition vehicle for Ari Sussman, Omar Ossma, and the technical team that previously built Continental Gold into Colombia's largest underground gold mine before its C$1.4 billion takeover by Zijin Mining in 2020. The firm listed publicly on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker CNL in 2021, raising capital from a mix of institutional metals funds, family offices, and the principals themselves. Its operational footprint is concentrated entirely in the Middle Cauca belt of Colombia, an emerging porphyry cluster west of Medellín. The company's strategy rests on a single-asset thesis: the Guayabales project, a 39-square-kilometer land package hosting the Apollo porphyry discovery and the Olympus and Box copper-gold targets. Collective Mining drills aggressively from its own rigs, targeting bulk-tonnage underground deposits — a narrower technical bet than the diversified exploration baskets run by major producers. Confirmed milestones include intercepts of 367 meters at 1.35 g/t gold equivalent from the Apollo target and a 2024 mineral resource estimate establishing 3.1 million ounces of gold equivalent in inferred resources at a 0.5 g/t cut-off. The firm has secured mining title and surface access agreements across its concession block, a non-trivial advantage in a jurisdiction where community relations can stall drilling for years. As of mid-2025, the firm maintains a lean in-country team led by geologist David Reading and a corporate office in Toronto. In January 2025, the company closed a C$35 million bought-deal equity financing to fund a 40,000-meter drill campaign targeting resource expansion at Apollo and first assays at the Olympus target (per the firm, January 2025). Collective Mining has also attracted strategic investment from Zijin Mining — a notable endorsement given Zijin's acquisition of the principals' prior discovery — and maintains a research coverage cluster dominated by Canadian mining specialists including BMO Capital Markets, Cormark Securities, and Scotiabank. What separates Collective Mining from the hundreds of junior exploration vehicles on the TSX Venture is the track record imprinted in the management team's equity holdings. Sussman and Ossma reinvested material portions of their Continental Gold proceeds into Collective Mining shares, aligning their outcome with the drill-bit. The firm operates not as a capital-raiser testing random targets but as a repeat team executing a proven geologic model — a structure that resembles a single-asset continuation vehicle more than a traditional exploration company.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2020
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
Canada
City
Toronto
Corporate office
Toronto, ON, Canada
Principals
Ari Sussman
Executive Chairman
Omar Ossma
President & CEO
Richard Tosdal
COO
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What is Collective Mining drilling, and where?
The firm's sole asset is the Guayabales copper-gold project in Colombia's Middle Cauca belt, a region emerging as a multi-porphyry cluster. Within Guayabales, the Apollo target is the most advanced — an early-stage high-grade breccia deposit with an inferred resource of 3.1 million ounces of gold equivalent established in 2024. The broader property includes the Olympus and Box porphyry targets, which remain at the initial drill-test stage.
Why does the management team matter here?
Executive Chairman Ari Sussman, President Omar Ossma, and their geological team previously founded Continental Gold, which discovered and developed the Buriticá mine — Colombia's largest underground gold operation. Zijin Mining acquired Continental Gold for C$1.4 billion in 2020. That same leadership group launched Collective Mining the same year to pursue an analogous geologic thesis in a neighboring part of the same belt.
Is Collective Mining a single-family office or an operating mining company?
It is structured as a publicly traded mineral exploration company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (ticker CNL) and accessible to institutional metals funds, public-market investors, and family offices. It does not operate as a family office, though the management team's concentrated insider ownership — including reinvested proceeds from the Continental Gold exit — gives it an alignment profile often sought by allocators in the resource sector.
What is Zijin Mining's role in Collective Mining?
Zijin Mining, the Chinese state-linked major that acquired Continental Gold in 2020, holds a strategic equity stake in Collective Mining. The exact percentage and investment terms have not been fully detailed, but the relationship signals that the acquirer of the management team's previous deposit is willing to back the same team again — a dynamic rare in the junior mining space and one that provides a potential exit path if Guayabales reaches development stage.
What is the current resource and drilling plan?
The firm published an initial inferred mineral resource for the Apollo target in 2024, totaling 3.1 million ounces of gold equivalent at a 0.5 g/t cut-off grade. A C$35 million bought-deal financing in January 2025 funds approximately 40,000 meters of drilling during the year — split between expanding the Apollo resource and generating first assays from Olympus. The deposit remains open in multiple directions, and no feasibility study has been published yet.
How does Collective Mining manage Colombian jurisdictional risk?
The firm holds mining title and has secured surface access agreements across the Guayabales concession block. Buriticá, the team's prior project roughly 100 kilometers north, operated with controlled community relations before its sale. Collective Mining's in-country team is led by geologists with decades of Andean operational experience, and the company reports to Canadian securities standards — offering a governance backstop not present in locally listed Colombian juniors.
What stage of development is Guayabales at, and who covers the stock?
Guayabales is at the resource-definition drill stage — the deposit has an inferred resource but not yet a preliminary economic assessment or feasibility study. Coverage comes from Canadian mining specialists including BMO Capital Markets, Cormark Securities, and Scotiabank, reflecting the firm's positioning as a premium single-project exploration vehicle rather than a diversified junior.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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