American Eagle drilling boosts NAK copper-gold project

Canadian explorer American Eagle Gold (TSX-V: AE; US-OTC: AMEGF) says new drilling at its polymetallic NAK project in British Columbia has markedly expanded a previous discovery zone. The stock rose.

Hole NAK25-57 cut 91 metres of 0.7% copper, 0.7 gram gold per tonne and 3.1 grams silver from 776 metres downhole, American Eagle said Thursday in a statement. Hole NAK25-52, meanwhile, intersected 85 metres of 0.66% copper, 0.15 gram gold and 4 grams silver from 687 metres depth.

Together, the new holes extend the east-west strike length of a zone first defined by previous drilling to almost 500 metres. The property’s South zone “continues to demonstrate strong potential for a large, high-grade system open to expansion both at surface and at depth,” American Eagle said.

“These latest drill results at NAK underscore the exceptional potential of this large-scale copper-gold system,” CEO Anthony Moreau said in the release. “We are defining and expanding a high-grade core at depth that appears to feed into the extensive near-surface mineralization. It is evident that high-grade mineralization is extensive at depth, and that it may show strong continuity with surface zones and thereby confirm the significance of this discovery and the NAK project.”

Large scale

American Eagle jumped 8% to 54¢ Thursday morning in Toronto, giving the company a market value of about $93 million (US$67 million). The stock has traded between 40¢ and 79¢ in the past year.

The exploration update comes as American Eagle – armed with $36 million in cash – advances a 30,000-metre drilling program on the property. NAK “has all the ingredients to define a mine,” offering “scale with potential to support decades of large-scale operations,” according to an investor presentation posted on the company’s website.

Based in Toronto, American Eagle counts two major global miners as key shareholders. Australia’s South32 (ASX: S32) owns 19.9% of the company, while Canada’s Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A, TECK.B) has a 12.9% stake.

Located within central British Columbia’s Babine copper-gold porphyry district, NAK has been explored by the American Eagle team since 2022 – though historical drilling and geophysical, geological, and geochemical work at the site began in the 1960s. American Eagle acquired the property in December 2021.

High grade

Drilling completed by American Eagle between 2022 and 2024 returned significant intervals of high-grade copper-gold mineralization that reached beyond – and much deeper than – the historical drilling. This indicated that zones of near-surface and deeper mineralization, with considerably higher grades, exist within NAK’s mineralizing system, according to the company.

NAK is accessible via all-season roads. It sits close to the towns of Smithers, Houston and Burns Lake, which lie along a major rail line and provincial Highway 16.

Immediate neighbours include the past-producing Bell and Granisle mines and projects such as Amarc Resources’ (TSX-V: AHR) Duke and Eagle Plains Resources (TSX-V: EPL; US-OTC: EGPLF) Hearne properties.

American Eagle has an exploration agreement with the Lake Babine Nation, whose members make up a large proportion of the company’s exploration team.