A comprehensive 2023-2024 underground drilling program at the Green Bay Copper-Gold Project has borne fruit for FireFly Metals Ltd (ASX:FFM), which is celebrating a 42% increase in its mineral resource estimate (MRE).
The latest MRE for the project in Newfoundland, Canada, stands at 59 million tonnes million tonnes at 2% copper equivalent (CuEq), amounting to 1.2 million tonnes of contained metal.
Genuine scale high-grade copper
FireFly managing director Steve Parsons said: “This outstanding result confirms Green Bay’s status as one of the fastest-growing high-grade copper projects with genuine scale in the Western world.”
The Green Bay project includes 1 million tonnes of copper-dominant mineralisation, with 550,000 ounces of gold and 5.4 million ounces of silver co-products.
These quantities reflect a respective 39%, 48% and 57% increase for each commodity.
In pursuit of the updated resource, the company conducted 40,000 metres of diamond drilling across high-grade volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) zones and the broader footwall copper stringer zone.
Cost-effective ‘immense growth’
“To achieve such immense growth in such a short time and for so little cost highlights the top-shelf quality of Green Bay, the skill of our team and the company’s commitment to multi-rig drilling programs,” Parsons continued.
“These same factors will drive the next round of resource growth, enabling us to capitalise on the open nature of the mineralisation and the potential for new discoveries as highlighted by the recent geophysical results.”
The resource expansion stems from the strategic growth plan the company has been pursuing since acquiring Green Bay in October 2023 where it has focused on extensive drilling and underground development at the Ming Mine.
The VMS resource at Green Bay has increased to 6 million tonnes at a high grade of 4.3% CuEq and remains open with recent downhole geophysical surveys suggesting potential extensions beyond this updated resource.
FireFly’s success is in part due to an industry-low discovery cost of A$79 (US$53) per tonne of CuEq metal, which positions Green Bay as a competitive, high-potential asset.
The project also promises significant bulk mining potential with the resource increasing to 93 million tonnes at 1.6% CuEq if a lower cutoff grade of 0.5% copper is used.
What’s next?
Following a recent A$65 million institutional placement and an additional A$8 million from a share purchase plan, FireFly is well funded to continue drilling and advance Green Bay.
With the second drilling phase underway and engineering studies set for 2025, the company is poised for further resource growth as it targets extensions in both VMS and footwall copper zones.
Both the large-scale footwall copper zone and the high-grade copper-gold VMS zones remain open, with the deepest hole to date in the footwall returning 61.8 metres at 1.8% CuEq.
Drill drive development and four underground drill rigs will continue into the foreseeable future and the company expects further step-out results in coming weeks.