Bastion Minerals enters Canadian copper space via acquisition

• 31 July, 2024
• WRITTEN BY Aaliyah Rogan

Bastion Minerals (ASX:BMO) has agreed to acquire three Canadian copper projects, including the ICE Copper-Gold deposit in Yukon Territory, and the Mariner and Harley Copper projects in the Northwest Territories. 

The ICE Project is a Cyprus-style volcanic hosted massive sulphide deposit, containing copper-gold, with a historical, foreign non-JORC resource of 4.56 million tonnes at 1.48% copper. 

The Harley Copper Project is an unexplored project covering 310km2, while the Mariner Copper Project is a 155km2 prospecting licence, with both located near Great Bear Lake.

Under the share purchase agreement with Knightons Way and Marnys Botha, Bastion will acquire 100% of Arcus Resources, which holds the projects, for $140,000 cash, 187.5 million shares at $0.008, and 93.75 million options at $0.03 and a three year expiry date. 

Bastion will also issue the vendor’s 62.5 million performance shares, which are convertible into ordinary shares, upon achieving a drilling intersection of at least 15m @ 1% copper across one of the projects within two years. 

The company will also issue another 62.5 million performance shares, which are convertible into ordinary shares, upon achieving a 10 million tonnes resource @ 1% copper across one of the projects within 36 months. 

Executive Chairman Ross Landles says these projects have the potential to be a game-changer for the company.

“The ICE acquisition represents a fantastic opportunity for Bastion, with a defined high-grade copper resource of 4.56 million tonnes @ 1.48% copper. Interestingly, the historical resource was estimated without including any value for gold, which may add extra value,” Landles says. 

“The projects have untested drill targets on electromagnetic geophysics and geochemistry, to discover new high-grade mineralised lenses to increase the project size. 

Bastion intends to rehabilitate road access to the project and re-establish the project camp, to support drilling activities. The deposit is located approximately 20km from a major provincial road and is 220km northeast of the provincial capital.”

Once the deal is completed, Bastion will evaluate whether drillholes on the ICE Project can be re-entered, in order to collect downhole electromagnetic data, to look for off-hole conductors laterally to or deeper than the historical drilling. 

Depending on whether holes are accessible, a decision will be made about a new deep-penetrating electromagnetic survey, considering the airborne and ground-based options. These will be used to evaluate the undrilled extension of conductors associated with the known ICE deposit, to generate drill targets. 

Meanwhile, high-priority soil geochemical targets will be re-sampled, to confirm the tenor of the original samples and to prioritise them as drill targets. 

Once drill targets are defined with geophysical and geochemical data, the company will evaluate the known host rock horizon and other potential host horizons in the area. 

At the Harley and Mariner projects, Bastion is focused on reviewing historical exploration data and will provide an update in due course. 

Bastion Minerals is an explorer and developer focused on gold and copper in the Atacama region of Chile.