Metallic Minerals Corp. says mining major Newmont Corp. is exercising its “top-up right” to purchase additional shares of the company. Read to see the other ways the companies are working together.
Metallic Minerals Corp. (MMG:TSX.V; MMNGF:OTCQB) announced that mining major Newmont Corp. (NEM:NYSE) is exercising its “top-up right” to purchase additional shares of the company.
With the purchase, Newmont will continue to own 9.5% in Metallic Minerals by purchasing an aggregate of 342,750 common shares at CA$0.33 per share to “adjust for certain non-cash transactions completed by the company in the last six months.
“We are very pleased with the ongoing collaboration and support from Newmont on the La Plata project,” Metallic Minerals President Scott Petsel said. “Our latest drill results demonstrate the potential of the La Plata project to be a district-scale, precious-metal-rich porphyry system with multiple holes returning from 500 to 900 meters of continuous mineralization starting from surface and including some of the highest grade-times-thickness values for copper drill holes in the U.S. over the last year.”
Exploration at its La Plata copper-silver-gold-platinum group element (Cu-Ag-Au-PGE) project in southwestern Colorado was funded with Newmont’s initial CA$6.3 million investment. In addition to capital, Newmont also provided technical support and expertise for the project through a joint committee with Metallic Minerals, including multiple site visits.
“These contributions are expected to continue in 2024 and may include Newmont providing experienced personnel to the project for enhancing surface data acquisition, geologic mapping, and geophysics,” Metallic Minerals said in a release.
The new placement is subject to final approval by the TSXV.
The Catalyst: 2024 Exploration Campaign
The main Allard deposit at La Plata remains open to expansion at depth and along trend, and more than 20 new surface targets have been identified, which may represent additional porphyry centers, Petsel noted.
“Final planning is in progress for the 2024 exploration campaign, which is anticipated to include resource expansion drilling with a focus on the higher-grade porphyry units at the Allard deposit and first drill testing of new priority targets outside of the Allard resource area,” he said.
Last month, Metallic Minerals released the final results from its 2023 drilling campaign at La Plata, noting that all four holes intersected porphyry-style mineralization from the surface and over their entire lengths.
Three of four holes in the 4,530-meter program intercepted continuous porphyry style Cu-Ag-Au-PGE mineralization over 500 meters in width at 0.3% Cu, including significant intervals exceeding 0.5% to 0.7% Cu Eq (copper equivalent) with associated Ag, Au and PGEs. Drill hole LAP23-05 intersected 909 meters of continuous mineralization from surface, grading 0.26% Cu Eq over the entire hole length with a 550-meter-wide higher-grade zone.
“Our emerging vision for the La Plata project is that we have the potential for a district-scale system with multiple porphyry centers in addition to the Allard resource area,” Petsel said. “This is supported by the multi-kilometer scale metal-in-soil values that extend well beyond the area of drilling and correspond with strong alteration responses in our detailed district-scale airborne hyperspectral survey.”
The company announced an expanded NI 43-101 resource in July 2023 for La Plata of 1.2 billion pounds Cu and 17.6 Moz Ag at an average grade of 0.41% Cu Eq, 0.37% Cu, and 3.72 g/t Ag, using a 0.25% Cu Eq cutoff grade.
The inaugural resource was based largely on historical drilling from which gold and platinum group element assays were not available. Metallic has stated it expects to add the full suite of precious metals to future resource updates.
According to the company, the U.S. Geological Survey has identified the La Plata mining district as a potential critical minerals resource area under the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative program and, in 2023, completed significant geologic and geophysical studies to enhance understanding of the critical mineral occurrence in the district.
Those resources and results, combined with those from its flagship Keno property in the Yukon and an alluvial gold production royalty agreement signed with Parker Schnabel of the Discovery Channel’s “Gold Rush,” led Couloir Capital to rate the stock a Buy last year. In an updated research note on September 27, it set a fair value per share estimate of CA$0.74.
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