Sterling soars on high-grade copper find in Ontario

[Redator]

Sterling Metals (TSXV: SAG) shares doubled after the Canadian explorer said it discovered a new high-grade copper zone at the past-producing Soo project in Ontario.

Drill hole MEPS-25-02 cut 68 metres grading 1.39% copper, 1.83 grams gold per tonne and 8.46 grams silver from 179 metres depth, Sterling said Monday in a statement. This included 9 metres at 6.8% copper, 13.2 grams gold and 46.26 grams silver from 215 metres downhole.

Results from MEPS-25-02 include the highest copper and gold grades encountered to date at Soo, Sterling said. Results from another hole, MEPS-25-01, are pending.

“This discovery clearly indicates the potential for a giant magmatic hydrothermal copper-gold-molybdenum deposit within the Batchewana peninsula,” technical adviser Neil O’Brien said in the statement.

“The high copper-gold grades due to bornite, coupled with strongly developed potassic alteration and extensive porphyry dykes, all point to a robust and focused mineralizing event that we have just begun to tap.”

Sterling soared to C$1.82 Monday morning in Toronto, boosting the company’s market value to about C$68 million. The stock is now trading at its highest level since March 2023, Toronto Stock Exchange data show.

Second stage

After completing a first leg of drilling in May, which covered 1,800 metres, Sterling has begun a second stage of work by re-logging historical drill core, reinterpreting geophysical data and conducting further analysis to define new targets across the 30-km-wide copper mineralized system. Stage two drilling has been expanded from at least 3,000 metres to no less than 6,000 metres, Sterling said Monday.

Located near the small community of Batchewana Bay, about 20 minutes from the Trans-Canada Highway and 80 km north of Sault St. Marie, Soo spans 250 sq. km and extends 30 km in width. Historical production in the area reached 7.6 million tonnes grading 1.97% copper, Sterling says.

MEPS-25-02 revealed bornite within the first 25 metres and intersected continuous visible mineralization to over 350 metres downhole, Sterling says. The reported interval contained no pyrite or pyrrhotite, which reinforces the high tenor of the system.

Exploration deal

News of the drilling results comes three weeks after Sterling reached an exploration agreement with the Garden River First Nation to “promote a cooperative and mutually respectful relationship” regarding the Soo project. The First Nations group will receive 210,000 common shares of the company in connection with the deal.

Soo is one of two main exploration projects that Toronto-based Sterling is advancing. The other is the 290-sq. km Adeline silver project in Newfoundland and Labrador.