FireFly Metals Ltd (ASX:FFM, TSX:FFM, OTC:MNXMF) earlier this week reported a 51.00% increase to the mineral resource estimate at its Green Bay project. The company said the resource now stands at just under 80.00 million tonnes at 2.20% copper equivalent. This equates to 1.70 million tonnes of copper equivalent.
The company said the update was based on 12 months of drilling conducted across its Canadian and New Zealand operations. It said 50.00 million tonnes of the resource is now classified in the measured and indicated category, while nearly 30.00 million tonnes remains inferred.
It said the inferred category includes 19.90 million tonnes grading nearly 4.00% copper equivalent. This high-grade core zone is a key focus for further drilling. Firefly Metals said the goal is to convert this inferred material into the measured and indicated category to support engineering studies planned for release between April and May 2026.
The company highlighted that copper remains the dominant metal in the updated resource. It noted an increase in gold, which serves as a by-product credit. Silver content remained largely unchanged. The company does not consider zinc or other metals to be present in significant quantities.
Firefly Metals said eight drill rigs are currently active on-site. It said work is ongoing to grow the resource further, particularly through regional testing of new gold and silver targets. It added that early signs from these programs are encouraging.
Steve Parsons, the company’s managing director, said: “For us now, it’s really about converting that high-grade material into in my category, ready for a study work to come out in sort of April-May time next year.”
He said the resource continues to grow in line with previous copper-to-gold ratios and added that new targets could be confirmed in the coming months.
Proactive:
Firefly Metals’ Green Bay project is on track to be one of the most compelling copper development projects in the world. How so? All the details on this are with the company’s Managing Director, Steve Parsons. Steve, it’s good to see you. How are you?
Steve Parsons:
Yeah, good to see you again. Going well today!
Proactive:
Definitely going well with this release. Investors are quite happy. We’re talking about a mineral resource that’s increased by 51% to 1.4 million tonnes of copper and 1.1 million ounces of gold. What more can you tell us?
Steve Parsons:
Yeah. So today’s a really big increase for us. It’s 12 months of drilling, which the team has done an amazing job on over in New Zealand and Canada. It’s a 51% increase in that 12 months of drilling. We’ve taken the resource to just under 80 million tonnes, now at a really impressive 2.2% copper equivalent grade — for 1.7 million tonnes of copper equivalent. So, a big upgrade for us today.
Proactive:
Steve, you’ve said to the market earlier this morning that you’re set to maintain your relentless push to create shareholder value. Of course, there are eight rigs on the job in the hopes to upgrade more of the inferred mineral resources into measured and indicated. How much bigger could Green Bay grow as more results start to come through?
Steve Parsons:
Yeah, great question. Look, one of the key things we’ve done for the last 12 months is really focus on increasing that measured and indicated category. So now we’re up to 50 million tonnes in the M&I category, which is the basis for engineering study work. However, there’s still just under 30 million tonnes in the inferred category. This includes some of the highest-grade material that we’ve seen on the property recently.
The high-grade core zone is 19.9 million tonnes at nearly 4% copper equivalent. A lot of this is still in the inferred category. So for us now, it’s really about converting that high-grade material into the M&I category, ready for study work to come out around April–May next year.
Proactive:
Steve, copper remains the dominant metal in the MRE. There’s obviously gold as well, forming an important by-product, and some silver that’s also present in some significant quantities. Could the tallies play up or change in the weeks to come as more results come out?
Steve Parsons:
Another great question. You’ll see in this resource update, we are a copper orebody with a gold credit. The gold has actually increased in this update, which is fantastic. Silver has stayed about the same. We don’t have any zinc or anything like that — or very, very small amounts. It’s a copper orebody with a gold credit.
You’ll continue to see the resource grow, probably at the same sort of ratios of copper to gold. As you said, we do have two rigs turning on regional testing. There are a number of gold and silver targets there. So with a little bit of luck over the next few months, hopefully we might see some nice and interesting gold targets come out. But Green Bay is very much a copper project, with a gold credit and a bit of silver there as well.
Proactive:
Firefly’s Managing Director Steve Parsons, always good to see you and we’ll look forward to having more updates from you in the next few weeks.
Steve Parsons:
Thanks very much for having me.