White Cliff Minerals (ASX: WCN) has expanded its promising Canadian copper portfolio with the acquisition of a proven exploration licence.

The company has announced the acquisition of Victoria Copper, the owner of exploration licence L-2797 in the same region as White Cliff’s Rae project in the remote Nunavut province.

The exploration licence covers the Danvers copper deposit and includes a historical resource estimate of 4.16 million tonnes at 2.96% copper.

Critical factor

Managing director Troy Whittaker said the copper-silver identified in historical drilling was a critical factor in acquiring the licence.

“This moderate-tonnage but high-grade historical resource […] is just one of several styles of mineralisation the company expects to find throughout the broader licence area,” Mr Whittaker said.

“Other targets include the very large-tonnage targets of Hulk, the high-grade, high-tonnage potential of Stark, the very high-grade native copper flow-top replacement targets and finally the extremely high-grade Thor, Rocket and Vision areas.”

The copper zone is open along strike and at depth, with confirmation drilling and other verification work of the historical resource set to be key deliverables for the upcoming 2025 program at Rae.

Fast-tracked verification

The company told shareholders the previously reported work and studies undertaken on the licence will be verified as quickly as possible, with proposed drilling planned for 2025.

“This acquisition not only provides the potential for fast-tracked expansion of an already identified large occurrence of copper but also further secures the company’s dominant landholding in the region.”

“We are now preparing for the 2025 drilling, with all targets identified and prioritised—the company is well-positioned to deliver on its CY25 planned objectives.

Binding agreement

White Cliff has executed a binding heads of agreement with Victoria Copper to acquire 100% of the exploration licence for a consideration of approximately $192,000.

A second payment for the same amount is payable six months from the completion date, with approximately $385k worth of White Cliff shares to be issued 12 months in.

The seller retains a 1% net smelter royalty over any minerals produced from the licence area.

Rae targets

White Cliff achieved further positive results earlier this year from the first project-scale geophysical survey at its Rae copper project.

The newly identified Stark target presents as a highly conductive signature over more than 14 kilometres of strike length and up to 2.2km width, coinciding with a well-defined structure.

Hulk West’s Target D presents another opportunity for large-scale vein-hosted systems, with a strong conductivity anomaly constrained within a major structure over 5.7km of strike length and up to 1km wide, crossing the basalt-sediment contact.

The new target at Hulk further increased the interpreted dimensions of the Hulk target to 23km by 10.5km.

Field truthing at Halo identified significant quantities of copper mineralisation embedded within basalts and sediments at surface.

This field observation, now corroborated by the Mobile MT electromagnetic survey results, offers scope for further discoveries at other conductivity anomalies within the Thor District.