Hercules extends Idaho copper discovery

Hercules Metals (TSXV: BIG; US-OTC: BADEF) has extended its Southern Flats copper discovery in Idaho, enlarging a target that may connect with the Leviathan system to the north.

Hole HER-26-01 cut 286.5 metres grading 0.43% copper from 862.6 metres downhole, including 65.5 metres at 0.61% copper from the same starting depth, the company said Wednesday. The Hercules project lies about 200 km northwest of Boise, Idaho’s capital.

“With these big copper porphyry systems, you don’t want to be drilling them off too tightly and really throwing money away too early,” president and CEO George Ogilvie told The Northern Miner in a Sept. 25 interview.

The explorer is moving toward its first resource estimate, with new management directing more rigs to Leviathan’s shallower, higher-grade copper. A connection to Southern Flats would expand the main target, but continuity remains unproven. The drilling must establish the extent and grade of the mineralization before Hercules can assess its development potential.

The latest hole stepped 200 metres west of the Southern Flats discovery hole. Two rigs are drilling south from Leviathan into the roughly 1 km gap between the zones, with assays pending from hole HER-26-04, the company said.

Leviathan’s mineralization extends more than 1.35 km along strike, reaches up to 750 metres wide and spans about 500 metres vertically. It remains open to the north, south and at depth, according to Wednesday’s release.

Southern Flats hasn’t yet yielded the copper-rich layer found near the top of Leviathan. The latest hole ended in a lower-grade intrusion. Reported intervals are drilled lengths; the release didn’t provide true widths.

Resource push

Two more drill rigs are expected to arrive in October, bringing the fleet at Leviathan to four. Management wants at least two more next year, Ogilvie said.

Hercules is considering 80,000–100,000 metres of drilling in 2027, compared with roughly 30,000 metres completed in the year to date. The new budget hasn’t been finalized, Ogilvie said.

Drilling on a 200-metre grid is intended to support an inferred resource estimate, he said.

Ogilvie and six former Arizona Sonoran Copper executives and professionals joined Hercules Sept. 1, after Hudbay Minerals (TSX, NYSE: HBM) bought the copper developer in June. Hercules founder Chris Paul became senior vice-president of exploration.

The incoming team invested C$4.5 million through a private placement that closed August 31. Hercules had about $32 million (US$3.2 million) in cash at the time of the interview, enough to fund its current plans through mid-2027, Ogilvie said. It will eventually need to raise more money, he added.

Barrick Mining (TSX: ABX; NYSE: B) holds a 10.3% stake. Hercules controls more than 404.7 sq. km across the 73-km Olympus copper belt through ownership and options.

Permit hurdle

At Hook, about three kilometres east of Leviathan, geophysical surveys indicate a target beginning roughly 100 metres below surface. An initial hole encountered altered rocks consistent with the margins of a porphyry system, but didn’t establish a new copper discovery.

Hook looks like a real, second discovery vector on the property, and we are encouraged by today’s maiden hole into the chargeability anomaly, which intersected phyllic alteration with disseminated and D-type pyrite veins – an alteration style reminiscent of the Leviathan porphyry,” SCP Resource Finance mining analyst Justin Chan said Wednesday in a note.

The company has applied to the U.S. Forest Service for road access on federal land so it can drill from a better position, Ogilvie said. He expects permits by year-end or early 2027, followed by road and drill-pad construction in the first quarter and drilling in the second.

Hercules plans to publish its 2027 budget and work program by year-end, with more frequent assay results expected as the additional rigs begin turning, Ogilvie said.