Phoenix Metals Greenlit: 51,500 Metres and Four More Rigs at Greenwood

Trevor Hall (0:14)

Phoenix Metals just announced an amended exploration permit for its Greenwood Copper Gold Project in South Central British Columbia, clearing the way to drill the top priority Phoenix Target Area. The company was awarded a 51,500 meter drill contract and has already has 10 of 12 holes complete at the Lexican Target with four more rigs en route to accelerate testing. Greenwood is a past producing mine site. The company was created in partnership with the Soyuz Indian Band, whose traditional territories underlie Greenwood.

CEO Nick Campbell is with us to talk to you about the permit unlocks. Nicholas, welcome to Mining Stock Daily.

Nicholas Campbell (0:51)

Hi, Michael. Thank you for having me.

Trevor Hall (0:54)

Nick, let's talk about the goals of this drill campaign. The Phoenix Target Area is the umbrella name for the top priority targets, specifically Phoenix South, JD Golden Crown, Phoenix Deep, Blue Bell. You have been drilling into Lexington with your current rig.

The overarching goal, though, is to find an open, pittable, near-surface bulk tonnage targets, Nick.

Nicholas Campbell (1:17)

Yeah, that's correct. And so, I mean, the Phoenix Target Area is really the highest priority targets that we have in the district. We started drilling at the Lexington's area, which in and of itself is a very attractive target that we're drilling off right now, but we have a permitted mine there, which allowed us to start drilling right away. And so, we were waiting for that amended permit, which allows us to drill all of the highest priority targets that we have in the Phoenix Project area. And just to remind everyone, the Phoenix area, there was a historic pit on the Phoenix Target Area that was run from 1956 to 1976

It took out about 27 million tons, creating .9% copper, 1.14 gram per ton gold. So, the first target area we're going to be drilling is going to be the extension of that. That's called Phoenix South. So, we've got a 32 hole program that we're launching this month. We have two rigs that are on site today, and they've just started up drilling. We've got another two rigs that are coming on site by the end of the month. So, we're going to have four rigs working on the Phoenix Target Area.

First, starting work at the Phoenix South. After they've completed the 32 hole program there, they'll move on to the JD Golden Crown, which in and of itself is a huge target area, three and a half kilometers long, 500 meters wide. It's actually the area that I'm most excited about in the district. But there are three major target areas that we're drilling off in this phase one program. That's the Phoenix South, the JD Golden Crown, and as we said before, the Lexington Target.

While we were waiting to get this expiration permit, this amendment, that allows us to start drilling the Phoenix Target Area, we have been drilling off on Lexington. Lexington is a Massachuck, a pirate target. There's about 170 holes that have been drilled into that historically, that we're all looking for high-grade underground resources. But what we're doing is we're looking, we've reinterpreted that historic data and we're drilling that off. Also, to confirm the historically, the high-grade underground resource, but really to also test the thesis that there's an open pitable bulk tonnage target at the Lexington target. That's where you're going to see the first set of drill results. We do have four rigs coming on the site by the end of the month, we'll have five rigs turning in October, and we should have our first results from the Lexington target out sometime likely in early October.

Trevor Hall (3:47)

Just to clarify, Nick, you do have potentially a start up with Lexington because you just mentioned that right now because you're able to do the permitting on Lexington. But there was also a previously open pit, which is what you're going to be drilling into for, which would have been a separate operation, which I guess has a lapse permit, correct?

Nicholas Campbell (4:11)

Yeah, that's correct.

There's a company called Merit Mining that built a 200-ton per day mining and milling operation. The mining was happening at the Lexington Target. It was an underground mine. There's 2.1 kilometers of underground development in Lexington. There's a permitted 200-ton per day mill. There's a permitted tailing storage facility. Now, all of those are on care and maintenance. In order for us to consider a restart, we need to come up with a plan in terms of how we'll attack that. That's part of the drilling that we're doing at Lexington.

Because we already have a permitted mill, and that's built on-site, we have a permitted tailing storage facility. We have 2.1 kilometers of underground development. These are all massive sum capital that have been put into Lexington and restart. The incremental cost for us to get a mine up and running is probably quite minimal. The fact that we have the support of the SOEs in demand is critical for us to be able to potentially expedite a restart of that small-scale mining operation. However, right now, the focus is primarily going to be on exploration. This is a district that we see the potential of hosting anywhere from half a billion to potentially billion plus tons of pretty good grade copper gold mineralization, but it will also have very high grade structures that will drill into. If you're looking at Lexington, the underground resource is averaging six gram gold, one percent copper, that's pretty good, great material. At Golden Crown, we do have an underground resource as well. It's about 182,000 tons, creating 10 gram per ton gold and 0.5 percent copper. While we're drilling off these bulk tonnage open pit targets, we also expect to drill into some high grade zones that will either increase the overall average grade of an open pit or potentially be developed into an additional underground mine.