Kingfisher Metals (KFR) - New High-Grade Gold Drill Programme Starts

Kingfisher Metals Corp. is a Canadian exploration and development company focused on its projects in British Columbia. The company’s asset portfolio consists of the Goldrange, Ecstall and Thibert projects.

Company Overview

The Goldrange project is a 100%-owned, 511 km2 land package, located in Central British Columbia, near the town of Williams Lake. The project consists of orogenic gold mineralization ranging from mesozonal in its west portion to epizonal in the project’s eastern portion. Kingfisher Metals Corp. announced on the 7th of June 2022, that it had concluded with an upsized private placement offering. The offering consisted of the issuing of 15,250,000 charity flow-through units at CAD$ 0.28 per unit and the issuing of 2,433,972 flow-through units at CAD$ 0.24 per unit for the total gross proceeds of CAD$ 4.85 million to the company.

The company announced at the end of May 2022, that it had commenced with a rotary air blast drilling (RAB) drilling campaign at its Goldrange project. Kingfisher Metals Corp. then further announced in mid-June that it had commenced with a diamond drilling campaign at its Goldrange project. The exploration drilling campaign will consist of 10,000 m of diamond drilling and is fully funded.

Kingfisher Metals Corp. released an update to its rotary air blast (RAB) drilling campaign at the Day Trip zone of the Goldrange project on the 12th of July 2022. The update showed the completion of 27 RAB drill holes at the zone, as well as the delineation of a significant hydrothermal system through X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analysis. The visual chips produced during the RAB drilling campaign have shown the same characteristics as the surface gold mineralisation in all the drill holes. The RAB drilling has to date indicated a mineralisation deposit of 275 m by 120 m.

Company Management

The company is led by Justin Perry, who serves as CEO and director. Perry founded Kingfisher Metals Corp. with David Loretto, who serves as the company’s president and director. Perry has more than 13 years of experience in the mining sector and has worked on over 50 exploration projects throughout British Columbia, the Yukon and Mexico. He holds a bachelor of science degree in geology, which he obtained from the University of British Columbia and is a registered professional geologist. Loretto holds a bachelor of science degree in geology from Queens University and has more than 10 years of experience in the resource sector. He has held various technical as well as managerial positions throughout his career and has been involved in exploration projects in British Columbia, the United States and New Zealand.

The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company is Barry MacNeil. MacNeil is a registered chartered professional accountant in British Columbia and has more than 30 years of experience in accounting and the management of publicly-traded companies. He has held various positions in industrial, private and publicly traded companies.

Gayle Febbo serves as the Vice President of Exploration for the company. Febbo has more than 17 years of experience in the mining sector and holds a master’s degree in structural geology from the University of British Columbia. Febbo has been involved with various world-class projects in Canada’s Golden Triangle throughout her career, including projects such as Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM), Brucejack and Galore Creek.

Rick Trotman, Chris Beltgens and Giuseppe Perone serve as directors of the company, with Perone also serving as corporate secretary. Trotman has been involved in various facets of the mining industry having held positions in procurement, management, sales and the technical advisory of major mining companies. Trotman is currently the president and CEO of Barksdale Resources Corp. Beltgens has more than 10 years of experience in business development, corporate finance and investment. He has served as the Vice President of Corporate Development for TAG Oil, since 2016. Beltgens previously worked in investment banking. Perone is a Lawyer by training and holds extensive corporate experience including securities, commercial corporate matters and mergers and acquisitions. Perone also holds experience in capital markets, regulatory compliance and corporate governance. He serves as executive and director for various resource and technology companies in the publicly-traded space.

Recent fundraise

Kingfisher Metals Corp. announced on the 7th of June 2022, that it had concluded with an upsized private placement offering. The offering consisted of the issuing of 15,250,000 charity flow-through units at CAD$ 0.28 per unit and the issuing of 2,433,972 flow-through units at CAD$ 0.24 per unit for the total gross proceeds of CAD$ 4.85 million to the company.  Each unit consisted of one common share of the company as well as one half of one common share purchase warrant of the company. A purchase warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one common share of Kingfisher Metals Corp at CAD$ 0.35 per common share for a period of 24 months, following the closing of the offering. The proceeds of the private placement offering will be implemented towards exploration expenditures before 2024. Justin Perry sums up the offering and the positive effect it has on the company as follows:

“…the money was all there, it was almost entirely institutional, from pre-existing institutions that have really upped their stake. So we've got two groups now that are just shy of, they are right at 19.9%; other groups, just shy of 10%. So we've got very supportive shareholders, there's only about 20% in retail hands right now. So it's good to be funded in this market and to have a healthy position and be able to really go out with an aggressive exploration programme this summer.”

Diamond drilling and RAB drilling programs

Kingfisher Metals Corp. announced at the end of May 2022, that it had commenced with a rotary air blast drilling (RAB) drilling campaign at its 100%-owned, 511 km2 Goldrange project. The RAB drilling campaign will be aimed at the Day Trip, Langara, and Standard zones of the project. The campaign will average one hole per day with a depth capability of up to 100 m. The RAB drilling will test several highly anomalous targets at the Day Tip zone, which has in the past shown mineralisation of up to 20.1 g/t of gold in sub-crop and up to 8.3 g/t of gold in talus fines. The RAB drilling will also target historical adit and sheeted quartz-sulphide veins mapped on the surface of the Langara zone, and follow up on results from backpack drilling conducted in 2020 at the Standard zone which showed mineralisation of up to 10.84 g/t of gold over 6.9 m.

The company also announced in mid-June that it had commenced with a diamond drilling campaign at its Goldrange project. The exploration drilling campaign will consist of 10,000 m of diamond drilling and is fully funded. The drilling campaign will be aimed at completing step-out drilling of near-surface breccia targets in the project’s Cloud Drifter zone which showed mineralisation of up to 73.4 g/t of gold over 1 m and 6.9 g/t of gold over 9 m in the Pad 400 target area. The diamond drilling will also include the maiden drilling of a multi-element geochemical anomaly at the Cloud Drifter zone, which showed high-grade gold mineralisation in exploration work conducted in 2021. The diamond drilling campaign will further include maiden drilling at the Day Trip, Langara, and Standard zones of the project, dependent on the results from the RAB drilling campaign of the zones.

Perry explains that the company intends to add a second diamond drill at the project, he states:

“…the plan is likely to bring in a second diamond drill. But the diamond drill is also been going at our Cloud Drifter Zone in an area where we really just scratched the surface last year and started wrapping our heads around the model there, and it's focused on breccia mineralization that we had nice hits last year and metres at 73 g, 9 m of almost 7 g.”

Assay analysis and turnaround time

Kingfisher Metals Corp. announced on the 12th of July 2022, that it had encountered highly anomalous pXRF results from the conducted RAB drilling at the Day Trip zone of the Goldrange project. The company has completed 27 RAB drill holes at the project, with portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analysis having delineated multi-element anomalies indicating a significant hydrothermal system at the project. The company has also identified sulphide minerals and quartz veins typical of gold mineralization through visual chip analysis of the samples. The samples have been sent to MSALABS for gold analysis through Chrysos PhotonAssay analysis. The results of the PhotonAssay analysis will be confirmed through fire assays, with the results of the analysis expected within a few weeks.

The company chose to implement PhotonAssay analysis to enable a shortened turnaround time from submission to the reporting of results. Perry explains that the implementation of the PhotonAssay analysis is not only cheaper but also faster and more cost-effective, he states:

“It's non-destructive, which means you're not putting acid into it and breaking down a sample. It means you can run another assay on that sample if you want to afterwards. Another benefit is normally when you submit a sample for fire assay, it only measures up to a certain point. And if it exceeds that, we need to run a second over-limit analysis. And often you'll see a company delay because they need to run over limits. Also, if there's coarse Gold, sometimes you need to run the screen metallic, which is a third assay you might want to run. So this accomplishes all of that at once. It's cost-effective, it's cheaper than if you had to do two or three of those and it does a lot at once”

Perry also explains that due to MSALABS being able to provide timelines regarding the reporting of results, the company can better plan its activities, and announcements, he states:

“…they're guaranteeing the timeliness of assays, which will be a big competitive advantage for us.”

Future

The company plans on continuing with its RAB drilling at the Day Trip, Langara, and Standard zones in the near future, with Perry explaining that the RAB drilling is providing an overview of the project cost-effectively. The company will also investigate and if possible implement a second diamond drilling rig as part of its diamond drilling campaign at the Goldrange project in the future. Perry sums up the company’s near-term activities as follows:

“… we have an option of bringing a second drill and so I want to get at least 7500 m and maybe up to 10,000 m, but then we're also ripping along with the RAB drill which is cheaply casting a lot of areas and we'll just go in and twin those holes with the diamond drill to get the geological information and the confidence of a diamond drill.”

To find out more, go to the Kingfisher Metals website