Kodiak Copper (TSX-V: KDK) - New Discovery + 75% of Assay Still Pending

Kodiak Copper Corp. is focused on its portfolio of 100% owned copper porphyry projects in Canada and the USA. The company is backed by John Robin’s Discovery Group, founded by Chairman Chris Taylor (President and CEO of Great Bear Resources), and led by Claudia Tornquist (former GM at Rio Tinto and former Vice President of Business Development at Sandstorm Gold). The management team has shown the ability to raise capital while protecting a tight share structure and attracting strategic investors such as Teck Resources. The strategy behind Kodiak’s portfolio is to apply Great Bear’s successful approach to the copper space, and unlock the value of historically drilled, under-explored assets in prime locations using new interpretation and technology.

Matt Gordon caught up with Claudia Tornquist, President, CEO, and Director, Kodiak Copper. Claudia previously served as a General Manager at Rio Tinto, working with the company’s copper operations. She has also held the Executive Vice President of Business Development position at Sandstorm Gold, a streaming company. She is the Director of Silver One Resources and former Director of Kennady Diamonds, leading the $176M sale of the company to Mountain Province as Chair of the special committee of the Board.

Company Overview

Kodiak Copper Corp. is backed by the Discovery Group. The company’s most advanced asset is the MPD copper-gold porphyry project in the prolific Quesnel Trough in southern British Columbia, Canada. Here, the company made a high-grade mineralization discovery in 2020 at the Gate Zone, which has since been expanded to a considerable size. MPD has all the hallmarks of a district-scale, multi-centered porphyry system with several targets with similar signatures to the Gate Zone yet to be tested, and multiple new targets being generated across the large 147 square kilometer property. 2022 saw the discovery of a parallel porphyry trend at the nearby Prime Zone adding further upside and size potential to the Gate Zone, and the discovery of the Beyer Zone, a new high-grade gold-silver zone. With a lot more potential unlocked at MPD, Kodiak Copper is looking forward to continuing its disciplined and systematic approach to exploration to generate value for shareholders through discovery success. The company was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. It is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX-V: KDK) and the OTC Markets (OTCQB: KDKCF).

Kodiak Copper is an exploration company focused on copper porphyry exploration. The company’s flagship asset is the MPD porphyry project in southern British Columbia. 2 years ago, the company made a discovery here called the Gate Zone. Since then, the company has executed 2 large drill programs in 2021 and 2022. It has been highly successful in expanding upon the discovery and extending it. Recently, the company made another discovery called the Beyer Zone.

The Market Landscape

Kodiak Copper’s share price has seen an upward trend in recent times and is currently trading at $1.09. According to the company, there is a lot of interest in copper at the moment. The company is financed. It completed a large 26,000m drill program in 2022. The assay results are currently awaited. The company has been publishing a regular news flow and it isn’t looking to raise additional capital in the near future.

The 26,000m drill program was carried out across 41 holes, out of which, the results of 9 holes have come back so far. Back in September, the company published drill results of over 1%, about 120m copper equivalent. In recent times, there has been an increased interest in the copper market and copper prices.

The announcement made today regarding the US inflation and the drop in the US dollar has resulted in a positive outcome for commodity prices. The company is highly optimistic for the next year. It is focused on the long-term outlook, where the copper fundamentals are expected to be highly positive as a result of the green energy transition. More copper discoveries are needed to meet the growing demand for electric cars in the market.

The Beyer Zone Discovery

Kodiak Copper’s Beyer Zone is a brand new discovery in trenching. It is a high-grade gold-silver discovery that is at surface. The discovery was made through the company’s regional exploration work along with the sampling program, and the prospecting work. The discovery is spread across a wide zone that features 14m of strongly altered rock. The results so far have been promising, and the company intends to follow up on the discovery next year with some additional trenching and drilling. The discovery has added a new class of targets to the existing ones.

With the Beyer Zone, the company was cognizant that the land package was prospective for gold as well as for copper. Interestingly, it is quite common for large copper porphyry systems to feature precious metals zones. Based on the historic exploration data, the company was cognizant that the land package had some good gold values. During the prospecting, the company found a very high-grade gold sample at the Beyer Zone, which led to trenching, eventually leading to the recent discovery.

Following the discovery of the Gate Zone 2 years ago, the company started drilling, which was a transformative moment. The company observed a big spike in the share price and it was successful in raising over USD$12M from the market. The discovery was a long, high-grade copper-gold intercept. Through 2 years of drilling, the company has successfully extended the Gate Zone to a 1km length north-south, about 350m across east-west, and down to a depth of 900m. The company has drilled a sizable amount of mineralization and the progress so far has been highly encouraging. It anticipates that the discovery has the potential to further grow in size.

The Beyer Zone discovery has had a promising start. The company would need to carry out additional drilling and trenching to determine the amount of underlying mineralization, the orientation of the deposit, and the overall depth.

Targets 2023 and Beyond

Kodiak Copper is looking to apply the experience from the Gate Zone discovery to other targets on the property. These targets are very similar to the Gate Zone and have seen historical drilling by the previous operator. The targets already have some shell mineralization. The company is looking to conduct deeper testing in order to find high-grade mineralization. The company has a number of copper targets lined up that it is looking to drill in autumn. It will continue to drill in 2023 with the aim to discover the next Gate Zone.

Through the Beyer Zone discovery, the company found a precious metals zone that is 2km in length along with a corridor of gold-soil anomalies. There are several different targets similar to Beyer. The company will continue to explore the Beyer Zone while also drilling at multiple look-alike targets, and testing for gold and precious metals mineralization.

Kodiak Copper seeks to make a strategic decision where it will either start defining a resource on the Gate Zone and proceed or test other targets on the property in order to discover multiple deposits similar to the Gate Zones, focusing on the scale and size of the deposit.

In 2023, the company is focused on discoveries. Once the high-priority target has been tested, the company will know the area that has the most amount of high-grade mineralization. Following this, the company will be in a position to decide where and when it will focus on a resource.

Despite the discoveries and promising results, the company has received very little attention from the market. It is cognizant that the market movement is out of its control. However, this does not influence the company’s exploration work. Over the longer term, the company intends on continue generating good results with the anticipation that the markets will recognize it eventually.

M&A Considerations

Kodiak Copper is an exploration company that is focused on copper porphyry discoveries. Notably, porphyries are big targets. According to the company, there isn’t a single porphyry mine that was built and operated by the junior who originally made the discovery. In the longer term, if Kodiak Copper continues to publish promising results, it is possible that a bigger company might consider M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions). The company isn’t looking to become a developer as it is mainly focused on exploration and discoveries.

To find out more, go to the Kodiak Copper website