First Phosphate Corp. (CSE:PHOS, OTCQX:FRSPF, FRA:KD0, OTC:FPHOY) CEO John Passalacqua talked with Proactive about the completion of the company’s 40,000-metre drill program and what it means for advancing its phosphate project toward feasibility.
Passalacqua explained that the six-month drilling campaign not only met its original timeline but exceeded expectations, with the company completing an additional 33% drilling due to new discoveries across the property.
The program focused on infill drilling at tighter spacing to upgrade resources from inferred and indicated categories to indicated and measured—an essential step toward a feasibility study.
Proactive: All right, welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. Joining me now on the road is John Passalacqua. He is the CEO of First Phosphate Corp. John, I know you're busy today. Thanks for giving us a couple of minutes.
John Passalacqua: Yeah, thank you for having me.
So, big news out from the company that you have completed your drilling program—40,000m in total. Must be a pretty exciting moment for you, John.
Yeah, look, it's the end of a six-month drill program. We started this back in October of last year. We told the markets that we would have it by April. We've had it by April. And also, we've completed an extra 33% on the drill program thanks to some great new discoveries.
And you've hit all areas of the property. You mentioned the new discovery as well. So this is all leading towards finishing off a report. But let's talk about the drilling first.
Yeah, so basically, as you know, we had a PEA on the property. We'd already done about 30,000 to 35,000m of drilling to get to the PEA. The PEA was drilled at 100 meter centers. So now to advance the resource from inferred and indicated up to indicated and measured—which is required to advance the property through to a feasibility study—we had to do this infill drilling.
We drilled at 50 meter centers to confirm everything that's already there and move the resources up to what's required for feasibility. At the same time, we found some great new areas to explore, so we added an extra 10,000m to the drill program.
Those are in the northern and southern zones of the property. So it shows there’s scale and size here, right?
Yeah, it’s always been a very good resource, but now we’re discovering a little bit more of it. This is normal—you never know exactly where a resource is. At some point, you move into feasibility, but this gives us the chance to expand the resource a bit more first.
We now know the resource is likely closed to the north and west, tapers to the south, but there’s more to the east. That helps us develop the pits and engineering around the mine, while continuing to finalize the 3D model to move into feasibility.
And lastly, John, it’s a bit bittersweet as a key team member is retiring.
Yes, Gilles Laverdière has led this from discovery through the entire exploration program. He postponed retirement by three years to support us. He brought the project to the level it needed to be.
Now we have Steeve Lavoie joining from Agnico Eagle Mines, bringing strong experience in engineering-led geology and production geology to help take this resource toward becoming a mine.
Quotes have been lightly edited for style and clarity