Pirate Gold harpoons copper-gold hit at Moby Dick

Pirate Gold (TSXV: YARR; US-OTC: YARRF) has uncovered broad zones of copper-gold mineralization in its first holes at the Moby Dick target in central Newfoundland, pointing to a regional system, the company said this week.

Hole PGC-26-068 cut 180.8 metres grading 0.13% copper, 0.36 gram gold per tonne and 1.73 grams silver  from 194 metres downhole, including 49.4 metres of 0.28% copper, 1.07 grams gold and 3.42 grams silver, Pirate reported Wednesday.

A second hole, PGC-26-058, returned 112.4 metres grading 0.12% copper, 0.22 gram gold and 1.76 grams silver from 250 metres downhole, including 45 metres of 0.17% copper, 0.46 gram gold and 2.57 grams silver.

Crippleback

They are part of the St. John’s-based explorer’s first three holes into the Moby Dick target at Crippleback, part of its Treasure Island project along the Valentine Lake fault some 30 km from Equinox Gold’s (TSX, NYSE-A: EQX) Valentine mine. The assays are consistent with a porphyry-to-high-sulphidation epithermal system, Pirate said.

“At a time when large, multi-billion-tonne copper discoveries are increasingly rare, we’ve drilled into what could prove to be an industry unicorn,” Denis Laviolette, Pirate Gold’s executive chairman and CEO, said in a release. “Today’s results offer only a glimpse of what may ultimately be a much larger copper-gold district.”

Laviolette is founder, executive chairman and CEO at Toronto-based EarthLabs, the owner of The Northern Miner Group.

Large, multi-billion-tonne copper discoveries have grown scarce as miners scour the globe for new supply to meet demand from electrification, data centres and the energy transition. A confirmed porphyry-epithermal system of this scale would mark a rare grassroots find in a sector increasingly relying on expanding known deposits rather than finding new ones.

Argillic alteration

The mineralization sits within a zone known as advanced argillic alteration. Drilling has confirmed it measures 3,100 metres long, 850 metres wide and 500 metres deep, with its full extent still open. It could all be in a system that may span 32 km by 8 km, the company said.

To be sure, the discovery is still at an early stage. Only three holes have tested the alteration zone, assays from a fourth remain pending, and Pirate Gold has yet to outline any resource at Moby Dick.

Pirate Gold abandoned one hole, PGC-26-088, short of target depth after swelling clay made continued drilling too difficult, a reminder of the technical challenges in testing such a heavily altered system.

More drilling

“We knew the alteration was telling us something, and now the first holes have confirmed it,” Tim Froude, Pirate Gold’s president, said in the release. “Our focus now is to keep drilling and figure out how big this whale really is.”

Crippleback lies on the same fault as Equinox’s Valentine mine which started commercial output in November and is ramping towards design capacity of 175,000–200,000 oz. of gold a year.

Geologists have logged more than 100 copper and gold occurrences across the 40-km-long Crippleback intrusive belt since acquiring rights to the ground, Pirate said. That includes 79 new copper showings around Moby Dick in the past month. The company is also picking up 12 more mineral licences nearby from several private holders for a mix of cash, shares and royalties.

Shares in Pirate Gold jumped 40% to 28¢ apiece on Wednesday before easing to 24¢ on Friday in Toronto, valuing the company at about $122 million. They’ve ranged from 17¢ cents to 39¢ over the past year.