AMARC RESOURCES LTD

Boliden completed C$30 million of spending and earned its 60% of DUKE, and then declined the option to take 70% by investing a further C$60 million. From 1 April 2026 DUKE runs as a 60:40 joint venture in which Amarc must fund 40% of every programme or be diluted - a materially worse position than the free carry it had enjoyed since 2022. Amarc stays as operator and a 2026 programme is being planned. Freeport, by contrast, elected to keep spending at JOY.

joint venture update

Amarc confirmed TWINS as the third new porphyry system at JOY, 17 km southeast of AuRORA under an 8.5 km2 anomaly. Hole JP25106 drilled beneath earlier holes and returned 300 m at 0.51 g/t gold and 0.23% copper from 819 m, including 45 m at 1.08 g/t gold and 0.47% copper. Amarc said more drilling was required.

drilling result

The last 12 of the 23 AuRORA expansion holes complete the 2025 picture: mineralisation now covers 1.4 kilometres by 0.8 kilometres and is still open north, east, south and southwest. After a full year of step-out drilling the deposit has roughly tripled its footprint from the 500 by 600 metre area outlined in 2024, with host rocks, alteration and grades consistent throughout.

drilling result

Further step-outs extended AuRORA about 100 metres further north and 200 metres east: JP25109 returned 200.95 metres of 1.38 g/t gold and 0.27% copper including 111 metres of 2.24 g/t gold, and JP25107 gave 201 metres of 1.40 g/t gold and 0.28% copper. These are back at discovery-hole grade after the weaker northern edge. JP25093 on the same section returned only 120 metres of 0.28 g/t gold, and four step-out holes on one section were still pending. AuRORA drilling in 2024-25 now totals 45 holes and 17,586 metres.

drilling result

Six holes on sections 8000N and 8100N pushed AuRORA more than 200 metres further north: 231 metres of 0.83 g/t gold and 0.22% copper including 141 metres of 1.11 g/t gold, 154 metres of 0.79 g/t gold including 60 metres of 1.58, and 200.4 metres of 0.70 g/t gold. Not every hole worked - JP25095 returned only 67 metres of 0.18 g/t gold and 0.13% copper. Grades on this northern edge run below the 2024 discovery core, which is what step-out drilling into the margins of a deposit usually looks like.

drilling result

Amarc reported partial results for JP25098 on their own: 159 m of 0.33% Cu, 0.43 g/t Au and 5.2 g/t Ag, about 260 m southeast of JP24079 and 350-360 m from the nearest 2024 core holes. The hole lies outside the strong magnetic high hosting AuRORA's high-grade core, so targets at JOY are not limited to magnetic highs.

drilling result

Freeport elected to proceed to Stage 2 at JOY: a further C$75 million over five years at no less than C$10 million a year, earning it an extra 10% of Aurora Minerals Ltd, the joint venture company that now holds the JOY titles and in which Amarc holds 40% against Freeport's 60%. If Freeport does not spend it, funding reverts to pro rata 60:40. Freeport also becomes operator, with Amarc retained as primary contractor to run the fieldwork under a separate services agreement - Amarc keeps the work but no longer controls the project.

joint venture update

Freeport completed the Stage 1 requirement of C$35 million ahead of schedule and has earned an initial 60% of JOY. The C$10 million 2025 programme depends on Freeport electing to proceed to Stage 2 - a further C$75 million - which Amarc expects in the third quarter. Amarc's share of JOY is now a minority, and the drilling only continues if the partner keeps electing to fund it.

drilling result

Results from IKE, the district Amarc still owns outright and funds itself. Nine 2024 holes in the Greater Empress area, 6 kilometres north of the IKE porphyry, returned 181 metres of 0.46% copper-equivalent from 30 metres including 60 metres of 0.90%, and 68 metres of 0.56% including 29 metres of 0.73%. Re-assaying historical core gave 158 metres of 0.69% including 47 metres of 1.44%, and 77 metres of 0.73% including 44 metres of 1.14%. Higher grade and more gold-rich than the bulk-tonnage IKE deposit itself, but on a property with no partner paying for it.

drilling result

Remaining 2024 assays included JP24080 with 132 m of 1.71% CuEQ (1.87 g/t gold) including 90 m of 2.26%, and JP24083 with 204 m of 0.72%. This completed the 20 initial AuRORA holes, and Amarc could not drill four planned sections because the crew camp closed for the season; a new porphyry discovery was also made at Twins.

drilling result

More AuRORA holes in the same vein: JP24060 gave 130 metres of 1.98% copper-equivalent (2.40 g/t gold) from 74 metres including 81 metres at 2.89%, and JP24075 266 metres of 1.02% from 34 metres. Two of the five reported holes were weaker - JP24068 at 192 metres of 0.56% and JP24063 at 132 metres of 0.88% - so the deposit is not uniformly high grade, but continuity from near surface holds across the step-outs.

drilling result

The discovery that changes Amarc: AuRORA, in the Northwest Gossan area of JOY that had never been drilled. JP24057, the first hole ever put into it, returned 82 metres of 1.08% copper-equivalent (1.24 g/t gold, 0.38% copper, 2.47 g/t silver) from 18 metres. Systematic step-outs then gave JP24074 162 metres of 1.90% copper-equivalent (2.19 g/t gold) from 69 metres including 81 metres at 3.04%, JP24071 212 metres of 1.18% from 21 metres, and JP24059 271 metres of 0.81% from 24 metres. These are gold-rich porphyry grades several times anything Amarc has reported at PINE, DUKE or IKE, and they start near surface. Freeport funds it and Amarc operates.

drilling result

Raised C$2.77 million in two concurrent private placements, issuing 25,000,000 shares and 4,807,693 five-year warrants at C$0.08: 15,384,615 flow-through shares at C$0.13 and 9,615,385 non-flow-through units at C$0.08 for C$769,231. Pricing at eight cents, and creating a new insider in the process, is what corporate-level funding costs Amarc even while Freeport and Boliden pay for the drilling.

capital raising announcement

The 2022 JOY programme - 37 holes, 15,427 metres - stretched the PINE deposit to more than 1,700 metres of strike with intercepts of 204 metres at 0.42% copper-equivalent and 105 metres at 0.40%, and made a genuinely new discovery at the Canyon target with 96 metres of 0.51% copper-equivalent inside 296 metres of 0.39%. Freeport has now put about C$20 million into JOY across two years. PINE's grades are gold-weighted (0.18% copper with 0.41 g/t gold); Canyon's are copper-weighted.

drilling result

The second Boliden-funded hole, DK22010, returned 309 metres of 0.42% copper-equivalent from 8.6 metres including 57 metres of 0.68%, within a broader 557 metres of 0.36%. Consistent with DK22009 rather than better than it. Amarc and Boliden agreed to add a third rig, two delineating the deposit and one stepping out into the surrounding 4.7 square kilometre geophysical anomaly.

drilling result

The first hole of the Boliden-funded programme, DK22009, cut 542 metres of 0.33% copper-equivalent from 9.4 metres depth - mineralised from bedrock surface to the bottom of the hole - including 183 metres of 0.43% and 126 metres of 0.52%. It shows the DUKE deposit continues far deeper than the shallow historical drilling suggested. Bulk-tonnage grade, and one hole.

drilling result

Boliden's Canadian subsidiary signed an earn-in on the 678 square kilometre DUKE district, able to take up to 70% by staging C$90 million of exploration and development spending, with Amarc as operator. Amarc now has a major funding two of its three districts - Freeport at JOY and Boliden at DUKE - and retains IKE unpartnered.

joint venture update

Freeport spent about C$14 million on JOY in 2022, its year-two contribution and roughly two and a half times year one, funding 15,427 metres of helicopter-supported drilling and a third rig from September. Amarc remains operator. Results to come.

drilling progress report

The first assays from the nine-hole, 4,300 m JOY program under Freeport expanded the PINE deposit, with 101.9 m of 0.56% copper-equivalent and mineralisation continuing to depth. The first hole ever drilled at the TWINS target found porphyry-type mineralisation, 63 m of 0.18% copper-equivalent including 39 m of 0.22%.

drilling result

Freeport-McMoRan's Canadian arm signed an earn-in agreement on the 482 square kilometre JOY district, able to take up to 70% through staged investment, with Amarc as operator. This replaces the partner Amarc lost when Hudbay walked away from JOY two years earlier, and brings in one of the largest copper miners in the world.

joint venture update

Amarc bought out Gold Fields Toodoggone Exploration's remaining 51% of the PINE property for 5,000,000 shares, with 2,000,000 more only if certain future spending levels are reached and no obligation to do the work. Combined with the purchase of Cascadero Copper's 49% the year before, that gives Amarc 100% of the 323 square kilometres holding the Pine and Mex copper-gold deposits, the core of the JOY project. Gold Fields keeps a 2.5% net profits interest over about 96% of the ground and a 1% smelter royalty over the rest, each halvable for C$2.5 million.

business combination

Hudbay gave up its options to earn into both IKE and JOY, leaving Amarc alone on all three of its districts and looking for new funding partners. Hudbay and Amarc had put C$5.55 million into JOY over two years, consolidating the land and delineating five clusters of drill-ready targets - work that stands, but a major walking away from two projects at once is the clearest negative signal a junior gets.

material agreement termination

Six new holes (3,060 metres) at DUKE, plus the two 2017 discovery holes, outlined porphyry copper mineralisation over an area 400 metres north-south by 600 metres east-west beneath only 4 to 18 metres of glacial till, open in all directions and continuing to the 360-metre depth limit of the drilling. Best intercepts are DK18005 at 330 metres of 0.34% copper-equivalent from 14 metres and DK17002 at 113 metres of 0.37%. Seven of the eight holes hit; DK18004, drilled a kilometre north to test the 4 by 1 kilometre geophysical anomaly, returned only moderate to low grade over 93 metres at 0.30%. Bulk-tonnage grades, not high grade.

drilling result