AuMEGA Metals Ltd has embarked on an extensive, fully funded 2025 exploration program across its highly prospective projects along the Cape Ray Shear Zone (CRSZ) and Hermitage Flexure in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
The company’s land package spans 110 kilometres along the Cape Ray Shear Zone, most of it historically unexplored because of ice coverage.
Fully funded and ready to drill
With the proceeds from a successful financing round in late 2024 in its back pocket, the company has trained its focus on the flagship Bunker Hill Project, the Cape Ray Gold Project and the Hermitage Gold-Antimony Project in Newfoundland, Canada.
AuMEGA managing director and CEO Sam Pazuki said: “We have been given a mandate by major global investors to undertake our largest exploration program since I joined the company in May 2022.
“Our winter drilling program at Bunker Hill will be the most expansive in our history, targeting a potential major gold or copper discovery.”
Bunker Hill is on a unique east-west structural portion of the CRSZ. Historical and recent exploration activities have identified high-grade copper, gold and silver samples, including up to 17.2% copper and 19.1 g/t silver.
The area’s geological complexity, highlighted by major bends and second- and third-order structures, supports its prospectivity.
“We are planning to complete 10,000 to 12,000 metres of winter drilling at Bunker Hill and with a clear objective of making a major gold or copper discovery,” Pazuki said.
“We expect the drill programs to commence in early February 2025 depending on weather conditions.
“Depending on the results of this drilling, we are reserving flexibility in the program to potentially add follow-up diamond drill metres for Bunker Hill in the second half of 2025.”
Drilling slated to start soon
Mobilisation of equipment is underway, with initial drilling expected to begin in early February, weather permitting.
The Cape Ray Gold Project hosts the majority of AuMEGA’s defined mineral resources, including the Central Zone and Window Glass Hill deposits.
These deposits contain a combined 450,000 ounces of indicated resources and 160,000 ounces of inferred resources.
The 2025 exploration plan includes a 5,000-metre diamond drilling campaign targeting underexplored areas, such as strike extensions of the Central Zone deposits.
Preliminary work will commence with a Time Domain Electromagnetic System (TDEM) airborne geophysical survey, designed to identify conductive graphitic schists associated with gold mineralisation.
Prospecting and sampling will also be conducted in areas previously unexplored west and south of the Big Pond deposit.
Drilling is slated to begin in mid-2025, with scalability based on initial results.
Additional exploration activities will focus on the Hermitage Gold-Antimony Project, where a high-resolution magnetic survey completed in 2024 is being analysed.
Inaugural drilling of up to 3,000 metres is planned for the second half of 2025, contingent on weather and logistical conditions.
Setting out the case
“We have the largest land package on the largest known gold structure in Newfoundland,” Pazuki said.
“We have the attention of major resource and generalist investors and major gold companies including B2Gold, who as a strategic investor upsized their investment in the company as part of our latest financing.
“There is 180 kilometres of strike between the Cape Ray deposits and Valentine deposits. We hold 110 kilometres of strike and these areas are characterised by a lack of exploration historically as most of it is concealed by glacial overburden.
“We have exploration activities nearly all year round and this program is fully funded.
“The AuMEGA team is switched on and laser-focused on making the next major discovery in Newfoundland.”