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

A third porphyry system at JOY, TWINS, 17 kilometres southeast of AuRORA under an 8.5 square kilometre geophysical anomaly. The story is four holes over five years getting progressively better with depth: JP21004 in 2021 gave 42 metres at 0.19 g/t gold and 0.11% copper, JP22020 210 metres at 0.14 g/t gold, JP24051 124 metres at 0.35 g/t gold and 0.13% copper, and JP25106, drilled underneath both, returned 300 metres at 0.51 g/t gold and 0.23% copper from 819 metres including 45 metres at 1.08 g/t gold and 0.47% copper. Amarc compares these to early Kemess East holes. Grades are a fraction of AuRORA's, the mineralisation starts 800 metres down, and the company says more drilling is required to build on it.

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

A single partial result released on its own because of where it sits: JP25098, 260 metres southeast of the nearest 2024 discovery holes, returned 159 metres of 0.33% copper, 0.43 g/t gold and 5.2 g/t silver. The grade is well below the AuRORA core, but the hole lies outside the strong magnetic high that hosts the high-grade material, which means magnetic highs are not the only place worth drilling at JOY. Nineteen step-out holes and one infill hole, over 7,000 metres, had been drilled at AuRORA by then.

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

The remaining 2024 assays include the best hole yet at AuRORA, 132.00 metres of 1.71% copper-equivalent (1.87 g/t gold, 0.63% copper, 5.2 g/t silver) including 90.00 metres of 2.26% (2.53 g/t gold), plus 204.00 metres of 0.72% including 50.85 metres of 1.41%. Twenty holes now define AuRORA, and a second new porphyry system was discovered at the Twins target on the PINE trend. Amarc states plainly that four planned sections could not be completed because the camp housing its crew closed for the season - the programme ended on logistics rather than on results.

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 JOY under Freeport - nine holes, 4,300 metres - expanded the PINE deposit with 101.9 metres of 0.56% copper-equivalent, the best grade over the longest interval PINE has produced, and showed mineralisation continuing to depth. Scout holes on other targets across the district confirmed further porphyry systems, including the first hole ever drilled into the TWINS target, which returned only 42 metres of 0.19 g/t gold and 0.11% copper - enough to prove the system exists, not enough to be a deposit.

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