The outcomes from 5 drill holes launched by Kodiak Copper Corp. (TSXV: KDK) have elevated the mineralized space on the Gate Zone of the corporate’s 147 sq. km. MPD copper-gold mission in British Columbia.
The corporate’s totally funded, 25,000-metre drill programme has delivered “spectacular” intercepts, in accordance with CEO Claudia Thornquist.
“The Gate Zone has delivered additional spectacular drill intercepts as we proceed to extend the dimensions of mineralized envelope, which now extends to a kilometre in a north-south path and a depth of 900 metres,” mentioned Tornquist in a press release on Thursday.
The corporate’s preliminary work in 2022 targeted on infill drilling a 170-metre hole on the Gate Zone. The outcome returned high-grade copper-gold-silver intercepts.
Kodiak additionally stories that it has been drill-testing anomalies northeast of Gate, and it had positioned a 400-metre-long, parallel mineralized development on the close by ‘Prime Zone.’
“We additionally commenced testing geophysical targets with coincident copper-in-soil signatures within the wider space across the Gate Zone and are happy that we have been capable of delineate a parallel mineralized development on the Prime Zone,” mentioned Tornquist.
Importantly, Tornquist underlined that the brand new mineralized development crystallized additional dimension potential and validated the group’s mannequin of a sizeable multi-centric porphyry system at MPD.
“The corporate has now expanded its exploration efforts to different high-priority areas like Dillard and Man. We stay up for this subsequent promising section of labor which ought to result in extra discoveries like Gate and Prime throughout the 147-square-kilometre MPD Venture space,” mentioned Thornquist.
Drill highlights included one gap on the Gate zone, which hit 0.69% copper, 0.46 grams gold per tonne, and a couple of.22 grams silver per tonne all through 117 metres, ranging from 587 metres depth.
As famous, two holes intersected a brand new mineralized development northeast of and subsequent to Gate, now referred to as the Prime Zone. Drilling right here has recognized porphyry-related alteration and copper-gold-silver mineralization over 200 metres in width, with 400 metres of strike and right down to 550 metres in depth.
One gap right here hit 96 metres beginning at 764 metres depth, at a grade of 0.28% copper, 0.14 grams gold per tonne and 0.81 grams silver per tonne silver.
An instance of core from 2022 drilling at Gate Zone, gap MPD-22-006, displaying a quartz vein with a middle line of chalcopyrite and bornite in hornblende-phyric diorite host rock at 696 metres. Credit score: Kodiak Copper.
Kodiak mentioned the 2022 drilling programme remained on schedule. It had accomplished 33 holes for 21,300 metres as of September 26.
The corporate has transitioned to testing high-priority targets within the Dillard space. This system will proceed evaluating extra copper-gold drill targets throughout the MPD property all through the autumn.
Close to-term catalysts embody a brand new 3D IP geophysical survey at present underway, anticipated to be accomplished subsequent month, masking 9 sq. km. and increasing southward from the Gate Zone to the Man and Dillard goal areas.
The MPD mission is close to a number of working mines within the southern Quesnel Terrane, British Columbia’s copper-gold producing belt. It’s close to the cities of Merritt and Princeton, in the identical neighbourhood because the Highland Valley and Copper Mountain copper mines. The mission has year-round accessibility and glorious infrastructure close by.
Copper discovery potential
In a current interview with The Northern Miner, Thornquist defined that MPD is a copper-gold porphyry mission consolidated from 4 intermittently explored tasks for the reason that Nineteen Sixties however by no means as a big, single mission. It sits in a confirmed, mineral-producing belt with mines.
Trade names akin to Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO; LSE: RIO; ASX: RIO), Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO), and Newmont Mining had all beforehand sunk greater than 50,000 metres of drilling into the respective properties, leading to showings of copper and gold being confirmed throughout massive areas. The caveat is that almost all drill holes didn’t check for deeper mineralization, mentioned Thornquist.
Kodiak’s first drill program in 2019 entailed three holes for 1,766 metres, reaching practically 800 metres in depth, yielding “glorious” outcomes. The newly found Gate Zone had considerably larger grades than historic drilling and the longest mineralized intervals on the mission reported thus far.
Within the follow-up program in 2020, Kodiak made a major high-grade discovery on the Gate Zone, introduced on September 3. The spotlight intercept yielded 535 metres of 0.49% copper and 0.29 grams gold per tonne (0.76% copper-equivalent), together with 282 metres of 0.70% copper and 0.49 grams gold per tonne (1.16% copper-equivalent). This fueled an $8 million funding by Teck Sources (TSX: TCK.A/TCK.B; NYSE: TCK) for 9.9% of the corporate shares.
In the beginning of 2021, Kodiak was recent off the high-grade Gate Zone discovery at MPD from the earlier fall. To accommodate an intensive follow-up exploration program, the corporate established a subject workplace and core facility in Merritt, benefitting from the convenience of entry and glorious infrastructure of being positioned in a longtime mining and useful resource space.
Drilling started in March, and a second drill rig was added in June. The 2021 drill program of 21,675 metres targeted on extending the Gate Zone discovery by systematically evaluating the related copper-in-soil anomaly of roughly one kilometre in size.
Thornquist mentioned drilling constantly delivered vital high-grade intercepts inside broad envelopes of lower-grade mineralization. Over the yr, the corporate elevated the Gate Zone’s strike size by nearly eight instances.
“Mineralization has been intersected thus far ov50 metres in size, right down to a depth of 850 metres and throughout a width of 350 metres, dimensions typical of different massive, multi-centre copper porphyry deposits in British Columbia,” mentioned Thornquist.
The Gate Zone stays open in a number of instructions. With a number of high-profile group members from the Discovery Group onboard with Kodiak, together with founder and president Chris Taylor and mining entrepreneur John Robins’ backing, the corporate plans to check a number of different porphyry centres with comparable discovery potential and worth impression as Gate.
Like its junior friends, Kodiak Copper’s fairness has been hammered decrease by unprecedented rate of interest hikes, stubbornly excessive inflation and geopolitical instability. At 50¢ per share, Kodiak’s has set a brand new 12-month low, giving it a market capitalization of $27.8 million.
