Sage Potash (SAGE.V) has released its anticipated resource update on the Sage Plain Potash project. In our recent coverage, we explained how we expected the successful completion of the Peterson 1 well to result in both a resource increase as well as an upgrade.

And Sage Potash didn’t disappoint. The total resources now stand at in excess of 770 million tonnes across all resource categories, of which 226 million tonnes are part of the measured and indicated resource categories. The grade is also very consistent with an average grade of 41.3-41.5% KCl across all three categories, as you can see below.

The measured resource is based on the radius of influence of 0-750 meters while the indicated resource is based on 750-2000 meters indicating (pardon the pun) a pretty tight control on the M&I resource base.

Keep in mind this resource is based on just two holes, and the consistency of the mineralization as well as the excellent resource grade are now confirming the Sage Plain Potash project as one of the most important potash resources in the United States.

We are looking forward to seeing the full technical report on the resource update (where after we can discuss it into more detail and catch up with Sage’s management team), but it is clear the company will hit the ground running. The next steps at Sage Plain will include additional engineering focusing on solution mining and determining the optimal mining and plant throughput capacity, and related to that, continue the environmental study work for the new design.

All elements will subsequently be used to put together a pre-feasibility study to determine the updated economics of the project. As mentioned before, Sage Potash’s management team is guiding for a substantial increase in the production rate from the 300,000 tonnes per year used in the 2025 Preliminary Economic Assessment. The stars are aligning for Sage Potash, and the updated resource confirms the project could play an important role in the US domestic supply chain. It’s now up to the technical team and the independent consultants to work on a pre-feasibility

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Sage Potash. Sage is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Canterra Minerals (CTM.V) has made true on its promise to update the resource on the Lundberg deposit, part of its flagship Buchans critical minerals project. While a resource increase was widely anticipated, the burning question was of course ‘by how much’.

That question has now been answered with a high-confidence resource update with 97% of the global tonnage at Lundberg in the indicated resource category with barely any inferred resources. The tonnage increased by 55%, the total amount of copper-equivalent increased by 34% and this percentage would have been higher if it wasn’t for the very strong copper price which has a mildly negative impact on the copper-equivalent calculation. This updated resource now positions Buchans as a high-priority critical minerals project in Newfoundland, providing a welcome change from the gold-dominant exploration stories in the province.

The long-anticipated resource update at Buchans

CEO Chris Pennimpede had promised the market to release an updated resource calculation after the summer, and it is good to see the company has now indeed published the results of a new resource calculation, which includes almost 4,800 meters of additional drilling since the project was acquired.

And although the total amount of additional drilling incorporated in this resource (drilling is ongoing, so we can expect more news and additional updates in the future) is relatively small, it did have a noticeable impact. And of course, the updated metal price deck also had an impact as although the NSR-value based cutoff for the mineral resource increased when expressed in dollars, this implies a slightly lower cutoff grade expressed in a percentage of the copper-equivalent basis.

As the table below indicates, Canterra Minerals’ Buchans project now contains just over 26 million tonnes of rock in the indicated resource category and a rather marginal additional 870,000 tonnes in the inferred resource category. It goes without saying it is very encouraging to see a high-quality resource estimate with virtually the entire Buchans resource ending up in the indicated resource.

Copper remains the dominant metal. Although it certainly is a polymetallic deposit – which justifies using a copper-equivalent grade – the 0.87% CuEq is justified as in excess of 40% of the copper-equivalent grade indeed consists of copper. Zinc (1.31%) is the most important secondary metal (fortunately zinc is also seen as a critical mineral, as per the official Canadian list), as are lead (0.56%) and silver (5.02 g/t) while gold only plays a very minimal role with just a handful of ounces thanks to its ‘trace-style’ grade of 0.06 g/t.

As the table above shows, this represents a total copper content of approximately 210 million pounds, with an additional 750M+ pounds of zinc and north of 300 million pounds of lead. Silver (4.2 million ounces) and gold (51,000 ounces) are nice to have, but clearly pay a secondary role in the metals mix. Not in the least because the recoverable and payability percentages for the precious metals (just under 66% for the silver as a portion of the silver reports to the zinc concentrate where it gets penalized, and 23% for the gold) are somewhat disappointing. With a recoverable and payable silver resource of 2.8 million ounces of silver and about 12,000 ounces of gold in the indicated category, it is clear the base metals are important here. Note: these recovery rates and payability percentages are already included in the copper-equivalent grade, so you should not be alarmed by these percentages; the cutoff grade and the copper-equivalent calculation are already taking these elements into consideration.

While we still have to wait for the technical report to be filed, the press release with the ‘first look’ is already very detailed, as the company has included detailed tables comparing the 2019 resource to the 2026 updated resource.

The table above provides a detailed overview of the changes, and the less than 5,000 meters of drilling incorporated in this update have generally increased the total amount of contained metal by about a third.

Not only did the resource expand (both in terms of tonnage as well as pounds and ounces), the pit-constrained resource has an average strip ratio of just 3.16:1 (indicating that for every tonne of mineralized rock, 3.16 tonnes of waste will have to be scooped up).

The image above shows the consistency of the pit-constrained mineralization, and we would expect the strip ratio to be relatively low in the first few years of a potential mine life (subject to completing a positive economic study), and increasing as the activities move towards the west where the mineralization is located a little bit deeper.

The meaning of recovery rates and payability percentages

Although preliminary in nature, the parameters used to determine the cutoff grade for the resource calculation do provide a useful first look under the hood. The independent consultants used a mining cost of US$3.60/t for mineralized rock and US$3/t for waste, processing costs of US$18/t and G&A expenses of US$2.40/t.

We also know the recovery and payability percentages, and this allows us to calculate the pro forma margins based on the available parameters. Please note: the company does not have an official economic study, and our numbers and calculations should just be seen as an explanation on how to interpret all available data. The only thing that will matter down the road will be the result of an official economic study on Buchans.

 We have compiled these in the following table:

Taking all these parameters into account (and hopefully the company can improve on the recovery rates of the metals), the indicated resource category yields a net recoverable and payable NSR of $82.25 per tonne of rock.

Knowing the average production cost will be $3.60 + 3.16 * $3 + $18 + $2.4 = $33.48, the margin at the aforementioned metal prices and recovery and payability percentages comes in at almost US$49/t with likely higher margins in the first year of the potential mine life given an anticipated lower strip ratio.

Again, these calculations are just an example and should just be seen as an explanation of the impact and meaning of the recovery rates and payability percentages, and why this matters in the greater scheme of things. And determining the margin per tonne of rock will help to determine the general economic viability of the project further down the road when the company is ready to work on a preliminary economic assessment. Before that happens, Canterra will also complete additional metallurgical test work to narrow down its processing options and find the best approach for Buchans.

And of course keep in mind the table with the net recoverable and payable calculation is based on the average resource grade. As the image above shows, the NSR is substantially higher in certain areas of the deposit, and especially the >$120/t NSR blocks close to surface are particularly interesting to boost the margins per tonne in the first few years of a potential development scenario. But again, all this will have to be determined and confirmed in an economic study to be completed further down the road by the independent consultants.

What are the next steps?

The Lundberg deposit is the largest but also the lowest grade prospect in the Buchans critical minerals district. We anticipate it will ultimately be the company’s goal to combine the lower grade Lundberg deposit with rock from higher grade zones elsewhere on the property.

Concurrent with the Lundberg indicated resource calculation, Canterra also released the maiden resource on the Two Level zone, an area directly adjacent to the updated pit-constrained resource (see below).

While the tonnage in this maiden inferred resource is nothing too exciting (870,000 tonnes), it is worth highlighting the average grade of this zone is almost twice as high as the average grade in the Lundberg deposit. As you can see below, the Two Level zone is steeply dipping on the northwestern edge of the pit outline, and could provide  higher grade material later in the mine life.

The Two Level Zone also provides some low-hanging exploration potential and recent drill results further highlight the potential along strike and at depth. And given the exploration success at Two Level, the company will be trying to replicate that elsewhere in the district where previously mined zones can be re-assessed with renewed interest and an updated approach.

As such, we consider the Lundberg resource update just the starting point and a first milestone for Canterra since it acquired the project in 2024. There is plenty of more work to be done, not just at Lundberg and the Two Level Zone, but also in the greater Buchans district where the ‘mine trend’ (previously mined) is becoming a higher priority exploration target as the Two Level exploration approach could be replicated to see if more mineralized zones could be found.

A drill program – part of the 6,000 meter district exploration program – is currently underway at the Lemarchant satellite deposit which currently hosts a historical resource of 3 million tonnes (2.4Mt indicated, 0.6Mt inferred) at an average grade of 4.4% copper-equivalent that was put together in 2018. Assay results should start to flow soon and this will likely continue well into 2027.

Conclusion

The Lundberg resource update is an important milestone, but it also is just the very first step of advancing the entire Buchans critical minerals district. Having 26 million tonnes in the indicated resource category at Lundberg and completing a maiden inferred resource at Two Level is a good starting point to continue to advance the regional prospects and projects.

The company still has approximately C$3.0M in its treasury, which should see it through the current drill program. And as we are nearing the ‘flow-through’ season, perhaps a good financing window to place flow-through shares at a substantial premium to the current share price could pop up, allowing the company to secure the budget for next year.

Disclosure: Canterra Minerals is a sponsor of the website. The author has no position in Canterra Minerals. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read our full disclosure.

Quimbaya Gold (QIM.C) released the assay results from six of the nine holes that were drilled on the Tahami Center porphyry system. There certainly were some expectations , especially after Dr Stewart Redwood confirmed the area of interest has the characteristics of a typical porphyry copper-moly deposit. And although all six holes intersected a large anomalous metal-bearing porphyry system, the encountered grades were sub-economic.

The best interval hosted 0.041% copper, 34 ppm molybdenum and 0.015 g/t gold over a total interval of 527 meters. And as you can see below, all holes encountered mineralization at an average grade of 0.02-0.04% copper with some minor molybdenum and gold values but that clearly is not enough to provide even a glimmer of hope of economic extraction as you would traditionally need about ten times that grade.

The data will now be interpreted by the company’s technical team to see if and where follow-up programs are warranted, perhaps after a round of surface exploration that could identify more porphyry targetss. This also means the attention now shifts back to the Tahami South gold-silver exploration program.

Disclosure: The author has no position in Quimbaya Gold. Quimbaya is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Generation Mining (GENM.TO) has kicked off the construction activities on its flagship Marathon copper-palladium project, but the company is also still working on its regional exploration program. The activities for 2026 have now been concluded as the company completed a regional soil sampling program with 1786 stations across 10 kilometers of strike length at the Four Dams, Lacobeer, Skipper and Boyer prospects.

This exploration program was designed to evaluate hanging wall copper potential, and to test targets that were identified in a 2024 exploration program. The company has already received the assay results of about half of the total amount of samples and based on those samples, the Lacobeer and Four Dams prospects appear to provide the most continuous coverage of soil assay results.

Generation Mining also completed geological interpretation work with Big Rock Exploration which has provided a new framework to evaluate copper mineralization within the Layered Series, which has seen very limited exploration. Historical activities at Skipper and Four Dams have shown evidence of copper mineralization within the Layered Series. At Four Dams, for instance, the drill bit encountered 38 meters at an average grade of 0.28% copper and 48 meters containing 0.31% copper in a 2013 drill program. Those drill results were never followed up on but Generation Mining will start working on a relogging and sampling program in the first quarter of next year.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Generation Mining. Generation Mining is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Element 29 Resources (ECU.V) is accelerating the drill program on its flagship Elida copper-molybdenum-silver project in Peru. This third rig will start drilling Zone 4, which is a high-priority drill target located directly west of Zone 1. Zone 4 hosts a mineralized porphyry stock with visible copper-oxide staining and anomalous copper-molybdenum rock geochemistry, making this zone a highly prospective target for mineralization.

Adding this third rig means the company will now very likely surpass the 10,000 meters of drilling it had planned for 2026. Additionally, the total amount of drilling could now potentially exceed 30,000 meters as drilling will continue into 2027 (with the possibility to add a fourth rig to further speed up drilling).

The two drill rigs that were already on site are now focusing on drilling some step-out holes at Zone 1 towards the west to drill-test the mineralization beyond the current resource at Elida, which stands at 322 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.32% copper, 0.029% molybdenum and 2.61 g/t silver.  

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Element 29 Resources. Element 29 Resources is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

While we are waiting to see details on the next Swedish government (as coalition talks have been difficult), District Metals (DMX.V) has just kicked off a diamond drill program on the Target Areas A and B on the flagship Viken uranium-critical minerals project in Sweden. These two targets represent two large conductive anomalies that were identified in the 2025 airborne survey, and remain largely untested (with a 2008 drill program mainly focusing on the periphery of the anomalies. There is no pre-determined amount of meters that will be drilled on these targets, but drill-testing these two prospects is part of the 5,000-7,000 meter drill program across the alum shale properties that has been budgeted for this year.

The two targets are located 1.7 and 7.5 kilometers to the north and northwest of the Viken Energy Metals deposit, and represent conductive signatures that are actually stronger than the 4.8 billion tonne (456Mt in the indicated resource, 4.3 Bt in the inferred resources) Viken deposit, which hosts 1.7 billion pounds of uranium.

Disclosure: The author has a small long position in District Metals. District is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Sage Potash (SAGE.V) released the long-awaited assay results from the Peterson 1 hole last week, and it is very encouraging to see the hole intersected the expected mineralization. Not only is it great to see the average thickness of the two potash beds of Cycle 18 being  confirmed (with minimal variability), the grades are also coming in as expected, with a higher grade zone running 52-52.5% KCl beating the expectations.

This hole should enable the company to continue to tick the boxes at the flagship Sage Plain project in Utah. We caught up with CEO Pat Varas to discuss the results and the near-term plans for the project. As one of the most advanced development-stage potash projects (with an economic study) in the USA, updating the resource and the economics should further add credibility to the project. This would position it as one of the largest (if not the largest) potential Stateside potash development project.

The assay results of the Peterson 1 hole confirm the continuity and high-grade nature of the Sage Plain Potash project

The main purpose of the Peterson 1 well was to confirm the presence of potash mineralization in the two Cycle 18 beds . The Peterson 1 drill site was 1km to the north of the previous hole drilled know as Johnson 1 The hole was very successful as it encountered 8.1 meters of 36.1% KCl in the upper bed and 5 meters of 36.4% KCl in the lower cycle 18 bed.

As the table above shows, the upper cycle contained two separate intervals of even higher grade mineralization with 1 meter of 52% KCl and 3.3 meters containing 52.5% KCl. That’s important, as this could pave the way to focus on selective mining methods to target the higher grade mineralization earlier in the mine life.

The key takeaways from the Peterson 1 well are the consistency of the mineralization as the grades and thickness of the potash mineralization is comparable to Johnson 1, about a kilometer away.

Let’s also not forget encountering a grade of 52% KCl is absolutely excellent. Peer Intrepid Potash (which currently trades at an enterprise value of US$250M) is currently producing from a resource with an average grade of just under 40% KCl. So 36% could be seen as ‘the norm’, but encountering grades like 52% KCl is absolutely excellent.

What’s next?

The assay results of the Peterson 1 well will now be combined with the data from the Johnson 1 well, along with previous obtained 2-D seismic and geophysical logs from earlier oil and gas sector drilling,  to deliver an updated resource calculation While not a firm guidance, Sage Potash has widely publicized it anticipates a resource expansion, and as the Peterson 1 well was drilled approximately 1 kilometer from the Johnson 1 well, the continuity of the mineralized cycles should indeed allow for a substantial resource update.

Additionally, given the location of Peterson 1 and Johnson 1, there is quite a bit of overlap in the so-called ‘radius of influence’ and this should hopefully allow the independent resource calculators to move tonnage surrounding the two wells (1km step-out) from the current inferred resource into the measured and indicated resource category. Additionally, with two holes drilled relatively close to each other, the radius of influence could be expandedas an increased number of consistent data points generally means more scientific confidence. As we discussed in a previous report, the NI43-101 technical report also included the ‘potential quantity radius of influence’ which incorporates a 5,000 meter radius, defining an additional target of 550-700 million tonnes (including up to 530 million tonnes in the Johnson 1 vicinity, and up to 166 million tonnes close to the historical natural gas well), based on one well. Now there are two wells that have successfully intersected the potash mineralization, we anticipate the independent resource modelers to expand the inferred radius of influence, perhaps not to 5,000 meters but an expansion to 3,000 or 3,500 meters could be justified.

While we have to wait for the updated resource to be published (which shouldn’t take long, and we expect to see the announcement within the next few weeks) to quantify the resource increase, it is quite likely to be a meaningful increase and upgrade.

Subsequent to publishing an updated resource, we anticipate the company to immediately work on an updated economic study. That pre-feasibility study should incorporate the higher total resource estimate into an updated mine plan. CEO Patricio Varas has been quite vocal about wanting to increase the scope of the project and the 300,000 tpa base case operation as per the Preliminary Economic Assessment will likely be sharply increased as well. Again, we will have to wait for the pre-feasibility study to be published (likely sometime in the summer of 2027), but Sage’s intentions are clear: it wants to work towards a substantially higher production rate, and a rate of 1-1.5 million tonnes of potash per year would be ideal, as it will also allow Sage to capture economies of scale and efficiency benefits.

The USA imports in excess of 95% of the 10-11 million tonnes of potash it needs per year, and it would be nice if Sage Potash could help the country to reduce its reliance on imported potash products.

As drilling a 2,248 meter deep hole doesn’t come cheap and likely has cost between US$4-5M, Sage Potash will likely be tapping the markets later this quarter. Hopefully this can happen on the back of a substantial resource increase, which would give investors more confidence in the corporate strategy to design what could be the largest producing potash mine in the USA. Intrepid Potash currently produces approximately 300,000 tonnes per year and the development plans of privately-held Michigan Potash are focusing on an output of 800,000 tonnes per year. So if the Sage pre-feasibility study in 2027 will zoom in on an output exceeding that number, it would potentially become the largest domestic potash project in terms of output.

Conclusion

Ever since Patricio Varas took the reins at Sage Potash, the company has been diligently ticking the boxes that are required to bring the project forward. Having completed the second hole and successfully intersecting the potash mineralization where expected adds additional credibility to the project, and this should result in a substantial resource increase.

That updated resource calculation should be out pretty soon, so we will soon see how many tonnes have been added to the total resource, and what percentage of the total resource base will be part of the measured and indicated resource categories.

While the company will need to raise cash, it should be somewhat smooth sailing towards the completion of a pre-feasibility study on the operational level. Sage Potash will decide on the preferred mining method to ensure the most optimal choice will be selected, and this should culminate in the publication of a pre-feasibility study, hopefully around the summer of 2027.

Sage Potash is aggressively advancing the Sage Plains potash project, putting it on the map as one of the largest undeveloped potash projects in the USA. The pre-feasibility study will likely also confirm it could be the largest US-based potash development project based on anticipated production rates, as Sage has been pretty vocal about targeting a higher production rate than the 300,000 tonnes per year shown in the preliminary economic assessment.

It looks like the market still doesn’t fully appreciate Sage Potash’s asset, but hopefully the pending resource update and pre-feasibility study will kindle the interest in what could be the largest potash development project in the USA.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Sage Potash. Sage Potash is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Although the copper component of the recent exploration success at Arras Minerals (ARK.V) is one of the key reasons why we are interested in the company, in last week’s update, Arras provided an update on its K-Ozek gold target, located directly east of the Berezski trend.

The headline result was impressive: the drill bit intersected 22.8 meters of 5.37 g/t gold, including an even higher grade zone with 6.1 meters containing 17 g/t gold. Not all holes encountered mineralization with this very high grade, but with 229 meters of 0.3 g/t gold starting at surface and 40 meters with an average grade of 0.83 g/t gold (including 2 meters containing 12.65 g/t gold), it is clear Arras Minerals is onto something at K-Ozek. Not only is the presence of high-grade gold in the epithermal system confirmed, the mineralization also appears to be more widespread than initially thought as the gold mineralization occurs across several broad areas and is not confined to a single isolated structure.

This also has consequences for the exploration approach at K-Ozek; the company’s technical team now believes there may be another porphyry system preserved at depth beneath K-Ozek. This theory will obviously have to be drill-tested to see if the theory that K-Ozek is a down-dropped block between Berezski North and Berezski Central holds. If that’s the case this could pave the way to drill some deeper holes to drill-test the porphyry zone.

As CEO Tim Barry stated in his management commentary; the results are starting to bring the Berezski trend together geologically and the company has now outlined three substantial porphyry systems at or near surface over a 7 kilometer strike length.

We would almost forget the company also released the assay results from two holes at Berezski Central. Hole EL26042 yielded 574 meters at an average grade of 0.40% copper-equivalent (0.11% copper and 0.23 g/t with a small 39 ppm molybdenum credit). This hole also contained higher grade mineralization with for instance 66 meters containing 0.87% copper-equivalent and 211 meters at a 0.62% copper-equivalent grade.

Meanwhile, hole EL26041 hit 707 meters containing 0.26% copper-equivalent (consisting of 0.09% copper and 0.12 g/t gold). As the table below shows, this interval also contained slightly higher intercepts such as 142 meters of 0.29% copper-equivalent and 217 meters of 0.31% copper-equivalent.  

These gold-copper holes represent more of the same, and further confirm the mineralization is widespread all over the district. While the grade is relatively low, as explained in our previous report (which you can re-read here), the low cost of power in Kazakhstan makes even lower-grade deposits economical. Neighbor KAZ Minerals, for instance, is quite profitable processing a similar type of copper-gold rock.  

Arras Minerals currently has four diamond rigs working at Elemens, but unfortunately the labs used by Arras Minerals are backed up with turnaround times taking up to 5 months (!). There is some improvement in sight, but it looks like the news flow might be a bit slower than we initially had anticipated and hoped for.

Patience is a virtue though, and we believe the current four rig, 40,000 meter drill program will provide the company with a tonne of data that will help to further refine the exploration approach at this district-scale gold-copper opportunity.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Arras Minerals. Arras is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Generation Mining (GENM.TO) isn’t wasting any time, as the company announced it has commenced construction at its fully owned Marathon copper-palladium project in Northwestern Ontario. A C$6.5M bond has been posted for the construction phase of the closure plan, and early works have now commenced. On top of that, Generation Mining made C$30M in downpayments to secure C$150M in equipment, and once again these purchases are coming in at or below the cost estimated in the feasibility study. It goes without saying the project gets derisked for every element of the capex that gets locked in at a fixed price.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Generation Mining. Generation is a sponsor of the website. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

Sierra Madre Gold and Silver (SM.V) has confirmed the capacity of the processing plant at the La Guitarra silver-gold mine has now been expanded by in excess of 40% to a capacity of 720 tonnes per day. That’s not just the theoretical capacity, as Sierra Madre also announced it has reached a steady state throughput at that rate.

This marks the completion of the Phase 1 expansion program at La Guitarra, and preparations for Phase 2, which will see an additional expansion to 1,200-1,500 tonnes per day are already well underway as the dry stack tailings facility is currently being expanded as well. We expect to see Sierra Madre complete its Phase 2 expansion before the end of next year, whereafter the average milling capacity will be 2.4-3 times higher than in the past few years.

On the back of the increased milling capacity, Sierra Madre is also accelerating the underground development of the mineralized zones. At the Guitarra mine, in excess of 1.5 kilometers of development has been completed since June, and the current focus is on reaching the Los Angeles bulk tonnage deposit into production. We consider Los Angeles to be a key element in keeping the mill ‘filled’ to avoid losing any economies of scale. Having a bulk tonnage target like Los Angeles should make it easier for Sierra Madre to have access to mineralized material to mitigate the impact of any potential issues elsewhere. Development at Nazareno and Coloso is also going as planned, with 2.6 kilometers of development drives completed since June.

We should also see the average grade increase throughout the current semester, ad the higher grade blocks of development rock will be reached by the end of this month. Processing higher grade material, in combination with higher recovery rates should boost the production, while the all-in sustaining cost per produced ounce of silver(-equivalent) will gradually decrease.

Disclosure: The author has a long position in Sierra Madre. Sierra Madre has been a sponsor of the website in the past 12 months. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

In an exploration update that was published in September, LinQ Minerals (LNQ.AX) announced assay results from its drill program on the Monza prospect, part of its Gilmore project in New South Wales. LinQ has already outlined a total resource of 3.7 million ounces of gold as well as just over 2.5 billion pounds of copper although the majority of the resource is low-grade with 0.2% copper and 0.2 g/t gold resulting in a 0.4% copper-equivalent grade.

That’s why the recent Monza drill results are interesting as some of the freshly drilled holes carry a substantially higher grade than the average resource grade. 113 meters of 0.71% copper-equivalent (starting at just 33 meters down-hole)and 193 meters of 0.45% copper-equivalent have the potential to further boost the resource and the grade profile at Gilmore, especially as previous holes already returned 150 meters of 1.62% copper-equivalent and 136 and 226 meters of 0.70% copper-equivalent.

Even more interesting is the fact that the mineralization remains open in all directionsa t this prospect, including an untested 1 kilometer long strike length between Monza and Estoril. This doesn’t really come as a surprise as Monza and Estoril are located along a 17 kilometer long mineralized porphyry corridor with known copper and gold occurrences.

Disclosure: The author has no position in LinQ Minerals. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.

IDEX Metals (IDEX.V) has released the re-assay results of the remaining four holes that were drilled as part of the 2025 Phase I drill campaign on the Kismet target of its Freeze property. All six holes of the 2025 program have encountered tungsten, confirming the mineral is present over a more widespread area.

The re-assaying program indicated that while the four-acid test method (which was initially used) and the SPF re-assay method have comparable values at low to moderate grades, but the four-acid method did not fully catch the importance and grade of the higher grade samples. IDEX highlights KSMT25004 where the four-acid test indicated 722 ppm W but the SPF test yielded in excess of 6,400 ppm W (which is the equivalent of 0.81% WO3).

As we previously indicated, tungsten could be an interesting addition to the already known set of minerals at Kismet. A grade of 0.1% WO3 represents 0.1 mtu. And with tungsten still trading at approximately $3,000 per mtu, even a combined recovery and payability percentage of 50% (note, this is just a pro forma example, the company has not yet completed any metallurgical test work to recover the tungsten) could add quite a bit of value to the project.  

Disclosure: The author has no position in IDEX Metals. IDEX currently is not a sponsor of the website, but has been a sponsor in the past twelve months. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.