Canadian copper explorer Kodiak Copper TSXV:KDK has completed the first few months of its 2022 drilling campaign according to plan and the positive results have set the stage for further drilling later this year.
The fully-funded drilling programme is exploring the company’s 100%-owned MPD copper-gold porphyry project located in Southern British Columbia.
The drilling started in March this year, first with one drill and then a second one, and was completed on schedule, finishing the last of its 11 holes by 8 June. The drilling at the Gate Zone has intersected prospective, sulphide-bearing, porphyritic host rock which was located between Gate and the historic Prime Zone to the north, and to 875 metres depth at the south end of the Gate Zone.
Over 7000 metres of drilling completed
The Toronto and Frankfurt-listed explorer said the drilling so far totalled 7,065 metres. The company plans to expand this up to 25,000 metres by the end of this year and also include 3D IP surveying and soil geochemical sampling.
Claudia Tornquist, President and CEO of Kodiak said, “We already see potential to further expand the high-grade Gate Zone in just the first few months of the 2022 drill campaign. New and deeper 3D IP geophysical data will not only allow us to refine our drilling at Gate but will also accelerate our targeting at the Man, Dillard and Axe areas which are slated for drilling this season and have the potential for new high-grade discoveries.”
“We also anticipate that our systematic exploration will recognize completely new target areas at MPD .”
Kodiak Copper’s MPD project
MPD is a large, 147 square kilometre land package located near several operating mines in the southern Quesnel Terrane, an area that is part of British Columbia’s primary copper and gold producing belt. It is situated between the towns of Merritt and Princeton and because of the excellent infrastructure nearby can be accessed all year round.
The Gate Zone remains open in multiple directions and further drilling in 2022 will focus on extending it. The company will move the two drills and potentially add more as its priority exploration area changes during the course of this year.
Core samples are being shipped to ALS Canada Ltd. in North Vancouver in British Colombia for preparation and final analysis. The company expects to start receiving assay results from the drilling in late June and will update the market as those results arrive.
Since the company discovered the Gate Zone in 2020 it undertook a 21,750-metre drill programme significantly expanding the known mineralisation at the Gate to one kilometre of strike length, 350 metres width and 850 metres depth. Kodiak’s first two holes at the Dillard target intersected better copper-gold results than any historic ones reported.
During the course of 2022, the exploration company plans to go further and expand the drilling to cover a number of other priority target areas, including a new one-kilometre-long “look-alike” 3D Induced Polarization response near Gate and high-priority targets in the Prime, Man, Dillard and Axe areas, which are showing similar geophysical and geochemical signatures as the Gate Zone. A shallow mineralisation from historic drilling will also be analysed.
