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MINING | M3 Metals Corp
M3
METALS CORP
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Creating a world class diversified metals portfolio in North America
MINING | M3 Metals Corp
The year 2019 resembles a major turning point in the story of Canadian exploration firm M3 Metals Corp, after shedding its old name ML Gold Corp in July to better reflect the company’s diversified base and precious metals portfolio. Then, in October M3 bought the Mohave Mine Gold Project in the US state of Arizona, significantly bolstering its collection of assets across North America, which include the Block 103 Iron Ore Project and the Stars Project - both in Canada. Speaking after the July rebranding, M3’s CEO Kosta Tsoutsis said the new name would reflect the company’s focus on the large-scale Block 103 project while allowing it to continue moving other projects forward, in what can now be deemed as a nod to the acquisition of the Mohave project.
Exciting times “I think now is an interesting time for us after adding the Mohave project to our portfolio,” Tsoutsis tells RGN. “This is a more developed asset compared to our Block 103
The corporate pairing frequently evaluate
project with a much smaller capex. Obviously,
assets around the world and move quickly
it’s in a different sector with closer term
when they spot value or high potential, as
production and this is exciting for us.”
was the case with Mohave.
M3’s strategy is simple: Secure low-cost
“Adrian brings a lot of experience in Canada
assets with clear exploration upside,
and the US, and we have a network of
with a specific focus on gold and copper
technical guys who have worked across these
opportunities in the Americas. Orchestrating
markets in the past, so we are focused close
this approach is Tsoutsis and M3’s president
to home and in low risk jurisdictions,” says
and director Adrian Smith.
Tsoutsis.
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The Mohave opportunity
The project has in the past received more
M3 secured an option from two separate
than 550 drill holes totalling more than
vendors to acquire a 100% right, title and
68,000 feet in a Northern quarter of the
interest in the Mohave project, which is
property, along with mapping and sampling
comprised of 160 claims (including lode
programmes in the Southern three quarters
claims and mill site claims) over five square
of the property, which have not yet been drill
miles of strongly altered rocks in the historic
tested.
Weaver mining district of North Arizona. “What really attracted us is the near surface samples and drilling results it’s had in this
MINING | M3 Metals Corp one small section. And then we looked at some of the data on the mapping of the rest of the property and noticed that there were very consistent soil samples and rock samples across five km of the property.� The previous work on the project was conducted in the 1980s and 1990s and funded by a private investor who actually managed to build heap leach infrastructure on site to 90% completion, although the project never reached production. As the years went by, Mohave fell into a prolonged stasis under private hands until the opportunity was spotted by Tsoutsis and Smith. While the existing soil and rock samples show a gold trend along 5 km of strike, there is a belief among M3 that further tests could reveal a wider system of mineralisation. There are at least 18 anomalous gold zones on the project that have not been drilled, leaving the potential for M3 to significantly increase the known size of the historic resources on the property. M3 aims to create a 3D model of the historic resource, estimated at 96,000 oz Au, and bring this into 43-101 compliance category, although currently the company is focused on compiling the large amount of existing data from previous mapping and sampling programmes on areas that have registered gold signatures and have never been drill tested.
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MINING | M3 Metals Corp
“Once we compile the data it will give us a
of mining majors including Rio Tinto, Arcelor
better idea of where to plot our upcoming
Mittal and Cliffs Natural Resources.
drill campaign. We’re going to apply for at least 200 RAB and core drill holes coming
Block 103 is the world’s largest 100%-owned
up, and we plan to apply for drilling and
magnetite NI 43-101 compliant resource,
production permits at the same time.”
after M3 spent $33 million on drilling and
A colossal iron ore project The Block 103 project is located in the
came out with an inferred resource of 7.2 billion tonnes at 29.2% total iron. What’s more, only 4 km of a 12 km strike was included in this inaugural resource.
heart of Labrador Trough, a 1,600 km long and 160 km wide geologic belt in Canada
But in an ironic twist, M3 soon found that the
that runs through the politically stable and
resource was too big and the initial capital
mining-friendly provinces of Québec and
costs estimation of $6.5 billion in the 2013
Newfoundland and Labrador.
preliminary economic assessment proved too high for a company of its size.
Labrador Trough is Canada’s premier iron ore district with 80 billion tonnes of known
“It was all well and good having one of the
iron ore resources being exploited by a host
biggest iron ore projects on the planet, but
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we were stuck with a capex of nearly $7
highest quality iron ore in the world.
billion,” says Tsoutsis. “To rectify this, we have recently hired Hatch Engineering to do a re-
According to the company, the Block 103
scoping study in order to bring that capex
project is one of strategic global importance
down.”
due to the widespread drive towards lower emissions across all industries. This trend is
In a November update to the markets, M3
no more evident than in China, which has put
confirmed that it is continuing to work closely up regulations for cleaner iron ore feeding its with Hatch on the near-term completion of
steel industry.
the engineering study, which aims to bring the capex down to below $1 billion. This
Therefore, M3’s high quality product will be
lowered figure would provide a much clearer highly attractive to China as well as to other pathway to production at Block 103.
countries with ambitions to bring emissions down as the world becomes acutely more
Aside from the vast scale of the project, the
conscious of its role in the climate change
fundamentals at Block 103 remain highly
phenomenon.
attractive. For example, the magnetite iron ore is one of the cleanest in the region, which itself is considered to host some of the
MINING | M3 Metals Corp
Stars shining bright
Huckleberry Copper-Gold-Silver mine.
After a successful exploration campaign in
Drilling to date at Stars has been successful
British Columbia, M3 discovered a copper-
in continuously expanding the known
gold-silver-molybdenum porphyry system
mineralisation along strike and at depth, with
that is hosted on the Stars project. This high
many additional targets across the property
potential copper asset is ideally located for
that remain to be tested.
a low cost mine development, with gentle topography and existing infrastructure
“We’ve had some successful results from
including road, rail and port access nearby.
drill holes at Stars, but on these occasions we missed the grades by just enough so
In addition, the project is surrounded by several open pit mines such as Goldcorp’s Equity Silver Mine, Centerra Gold’s Endako mine, and Imperials Metals Corp’s
the market didn’t give us enough love for
Resource Global Network it. The potential is still there; it’s got all the
“The next 12 months will also be exciting
infrastructure and the magnetics confirm a
because after the Hatch engineering study
large system is there, but then Mohave came
comes out for Block 103 project, we’ll have
along and we are focusing on that now.”
to figure out the next steps there. I think we are going to create a lot more value for the
In the coming period, M3 will focus on
company when this report comes out, as the
securing permitting for the Mohave project,
capex is going to be a lot lower than previous
as well as compiling all the existing records
estimations.”
into a digital database, creating modelling, doing surveys, and ultimately getting crews on the ground at the property.
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Published by Anderson Murray Media Ltd
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