Soaring demand for copper will help drive mergers, BHP CEO says
Demand for copper, a key element in the energy transition, is set to rise by 70% to 100% by 2050, Mike Henry said
Callinex Mines (TSXV: CNX) has estimated an initial high-grade copper resource for its 100% owned Pine Bay project in Manitoba, comprising contiguous mineral claims and leases covering 6,795 hectares of the Flin Flon mining district.
The deposits at the Pine Bay project are volcanogenic massive sulphides, which contain significant copper, zinc, gold and silver that the Flin Flon mining district is well known for.
The main discovery is the Rainbow deposit, which contains an indicated resource of 3.44 million tonnes at 3.59% copper equivalent (CuEq), containing 238.3 million lb. copper, 56.9 million lb. zinc, 37,600 oz. gold, 692,800 oz. silver and 2.3 million lb. lead, plus an inferred resource of 1.28 million tonnes at 2.95% CuEq containing 72.1 million lb. copper, 19.5 million lb. zinc, 11,100 oz. gold, 222,200 oz. silver and 800,000 lb. lead.
The Rainbow deposit remains open for expansion in addition to the nearby Pine Bay deposit, which contains an inferred mineral resource of 1.0 million tonnes at 2.62% copper containing 58.1 million lb. copper.
Shares of Callinex Mines surged by 28.8% as of 11:45 a.m. EDT Monday following the resource estimate, giving the company a market capitalization of approximately C$55 million ($41 million).
According to JJ O’Donell, Callinex’s exploration manager, this initial mineral resource only covers a small footprint on the company’s exploration land package in Manitoba. The focus now is to continue with its ongoing drilling campaign to test high-priority targets at the Rainbow, Alchemist, Odin and Cabin deposits, with the objective of adding further resources.
“The Pine Bay project maiden resource has extraordinary copper grades and excellent tonnage in two deposits about 900 metres apart. The opportunity to further increase resource tonnage both in depth and from parallel structures is considerable,” Peter Jones, a member of Callinex’s technical team, added.
Jim Pickell, another member of the technical team, said: “After working and contributing to the discovery of several significant deposits in the Flin Flon area, I’ve always been intrigued by the special geological setting in the Pine Bay area and its continued proven propensity to host prolific VMS systems. Nothing that I’ve seen in our current round of exploration reduces that initial level of optimism for the property.”
The Rainbow deposit was initially discovered with a discovery hole in 2020. In a relatively short time, Callinex has carried out a number of extensive drill programs to define a high-grade copper mineral resource at this deposit.
The focus of the company is to further expand the size of the Rainbow deposit both laterally and at depth. The last deep hole at the Rainbow deposit intersected the Yellow zone and returned 5.0 metres of 1.56% CuEq (consisting of 1.45% copper, 0.07 g/t gold, 1.86 g/t silver and 0.11% zinc).
Additional drilling at a number of high-priority targets also resulted in the discovery of the nearby Alchemist and Odin prospects, which are not part of the current resource estimate.
Follow-up drilling is also planned to step out vertically above and below Alchemist. The last reported drill hole of Alchemist intersected 4.4 metres of 4.02% CuEq, including 1.60% copper, 5.14% zinc, 0.40 g/t gold and 21.78 g/t silver.
With these two discoveries, Callinex says it has a deeper understanding of how VMS deposits sit along the stacked horizons located within the main controlling growth fault corridor at the project. It has now refined exploration target areas and is currently drill testing these targets to follow up on previous high-grade intersections.
