The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
JV with Finlay Minerals in the heart of Toodoggone district North of 60 Mining News – February 11, 2022
The PIL copper-gold-silver property in northcentral British Columbia is the largest in Finlay Minerals' portolio.
The PIL property encompasses several distinct areas of mineralization; these include from north to south: the NW, Silver Ridge, NE, WG, Central, Gold, Atlas West and East, Pillar East, and PIL South zones.
ATAC Resources Ltd. Feb. 10 announced that it has signed a letter of intent to option the 151.5-square-kilometer (58.5 square miles) PIL copper-gold-silver property from Finlay Minerals Ltd.
Located about 15 kilometers (nine miles) east of Benchmark Metals' Lawyers gold-silver project, the road-accessible PIL property covers numerous highly prospective copper-gold porphyry and epithermal gold-silver targets within a prolific and highly active part of BC's Golden Horseshoe.
"We are extremely excited to add the PIL property to our robust portfolio of copper and gold exploration projects," said ATAC Resources President and CEO Graham Downs. "Finding a road-accessible BC copper-gold project to further diversify our project pipeline has been a major focus for us over the past year. This acquisition provides a rare opportunity to explore one of the few remaining large and underexplored land packages in the heart of one of BC's hottest exploration districts."
This compelling but underexplored exploration property lies within the traditional territories of the Kwadacha, Tsay Keh Dene, Takla and Tahltan First Nations, and ATAC says it looks forward to building strong and respectful relationships with all local First Nations communities.
PIL lies within the Stikine Terrane and is juxtaposed against the Quesnel Terrane by the 1,000-plus-kilometer (more than 620 miles) long, deep-seated, crustal-scale strike-slip Teslin-Thibert fault, approximately eight kilometers (five miles) northeast of the property's boundary.
Furthermore, PIL is found in the heart of the northwest-trending Toodoggone district in northern British Colombia, in the eastern part of the Stikine Terrane.
Property highlights include:
• It is ultimately a large, underexplored land package with numerous highly prospective copper-gold porphyry and epithermal gold-silver targets.
• Located in a prolific and highly active part of BC's Golden Horseshoe, amongst multiple past-producing mines and advanced exploration projects.
• Recently identified Copper Ridge zone hosts a 1,300- by 750-meter copper-gold-molybdenum soil anomaly which has not been drill tested.
• Composite talus sampling in 2015 at the Copper Cliff discovery returned 25 meters of 1.04% copper and has not been evaluated by drilling.
• Atlas East grab sampling returned 489.71 grams per metric ton gold with 6,514 g/t silver from a brecciated bedrock source and 72.47 g/t gold with 2,187 g/t silver from quartz vein float material.
Under the agreement, the terms for the optioning entail a binding term sheet to acquire 70% interest in PIL by making aggregate cash payments of C$650,000, cash equivalent in shares totaling C$1,250,000 and incurring C$12 million in exploration expenditures on or before December 31, 2026.
"Planning is already underway for aggressive exploration at PIL during the 2022 field season to follow-up on multiple untested copper porphyry and epithermal gold targets on the property," added Downs. "Details of the 2022 exploration programs will be announced in the coming weeks."
Following the commitment of the option, ATAC (70%) and Finlay (30%) will hold interests in the property, with a joint venture formation in the works. Additionally, the property is subject to a 3% net smelter return royalty held by Electrum Resource Corp., with the right to buy back half of the royalty for C$2 million. This buyback right will be transferred to the JV following completion of the option.
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