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CEO Message

 

2023 Year in Review & Fully Funded for Extensive Drilling in 2024 

 

February 2024

Dear Investor,

I am pleased to report on the milestones and achievements of Amarc Resources Ltd. in 2023, which have culminated in all of Amarc's projects being fully funded for 2024.  The stage is set for extensive drilling to significantly advance our portfolio of copper-gold ("Cu-Au") districts this year.  Amarc will operate all projects.

In 2023, the Company advanced the JOY and DUKE Districts through extensive work programs funded by our earn-in parties Freeport McMoRan Mineral Properties Canada Ltd. ("Freeport") and Boliden Mineral Canada Ltd. ("Boliden"), respectively.  As announced on October 26 and December 13, 2023, both companies are continuing their participation into this year.  Management believes that these strategic earn-in agreements are a testament to the high quality of our project portfolio in British Columbia.  In addition to being important catalysts to the advancement of our projects, the investments made through the JOY and DUKE agreements will provide a significant flow of exploration results in 2024.

Amarc also completed a $2.77 million international financing in late 2023 (December 1, 2023 release) in a challenging market for junior exploration companies. As a result, we are fully funded to meet our corporate objectives in 2024.

At the JOY Copper-Gold District, Amarc entered into a Mineral Property Earn-In Agreement with Freeport, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Freeport MacMoRan Inc. (May 12, 2021 release). Freeport can earn up to a 70% ownership interest in JOY by making staged investments totalling CDN$110 million. The 2023 program at JOY built on the successes of the systematic 2022 program (15,427 m of drilling in 37 core holes and extensive surface surveys) that defined the important potential of deposit-scale porphyry Cu-Au systems (January 23, 2023 and March 2, 2023 releases). Highlights include:

  • The emergence of mineralized trends at JOY, similar to the 4-km long northeast trend of the Nugget, Kemess North, Kemess Underground, Kemess Offset and Kemess East porphyry Cu-Au deposits in the Kemess Mining District held by Centerra Gold Inc., and located immediately adjacent to the south of the JOY tenure;
  • One of these - the northeast striking, 15 km PINE Trend - includes large-scale sulphide systems outlined by Induced Polarization surveys at the PINE (6 km2) Deposit, Canyon (5 km2) Discovery, and Twins (7 km2) and SWT (3 km2) deposit targets; initial drilling indicates the potential for a cluster of porphyry mineralized deposits;
  • Considerable extension of the mineralization at the PINE Deposit to over 1,700 m along strike and from near surface to depth. The widely-spaced drilling completed to date also indicates clear potential to expand the length of the deposit footprint to over 2,600 m; and
  • Discovery of substantial new Cu-Au porphyry mineralization at the largely overburden covered Canyon (5 km2) deposit target.

Freeport's investments include $5.94 million contributed in 2021, approximately $14 million in 2022 plus full funding of this past year's program.  Field surveys in 2023 focused on detailed refinement of multiple porphyry Cu-Au deposit targets clustered along mineralized trends over the 495 km2 property.  Rehabilitation of bridge and road access to the PINE Cu-Au Deposit and other deposit targets also took place in 2023 in preparation for an extensive drilling program in 2024, scheduled to commence in the second quarter.

At the DUKE Copper-Gold District, Amarc entered into a mineral property earn-in agreement (the "EIA") with Boliden, an entity within the Boliden Group of companies in late 2022 (November 22, 2022 release).  Under the terms of the agreement, Boliden has a two-staged option to earn up to a 70% interest in the DUKE District by investing CDN$90 million in exploration and development expenditures.  Significant progress has been made since that time.

Drilling in 2022-2023 confirmed that the DUKE Deposit extends to depths of at least 600 m and expanded the deposit footprint laterally to over 650 m north-south and 800 m east-west (June 15, 2023 release). Moreover, a comprehensive exploration template was developed to effectively screen and advance the additional 16 priority exploration targets within the extensive 722 km2 DUKE District tenure. This rapid advance in the understanding of controls on mineralization at the DUKE Deposit provides a higher probability of success in these regional target areas while revealing significant potential exists, with further drilling, for the definition of internal higher-grade zones within that deposit.

Approximately $10 million in exploration expenditures were made in 2022-2023 in the DUKE District, fully funded under the EIA with Boliden. In December 2023, Amarc announced that preparations had commenced with Boliden for an extensive $10 million program in 2024.  The first drilling phase has already begun, and is focused on the DUKE Deposit and surrounding DUKE Deposit Target. A second phase of drilling is planned for the summer to test a number of deposit targets across the DUKE District, including our recently announced, promising and drill-ready Svea copper-gold target (February 8, 2024 release).

In its successful 2023 financing, Amarc raised some $2 million to be used exclusively for exploration of its portfolio of B.C. copper-gold projects. The Company has initiated plans to sole fund drilling at the higher grade Empress deposit in the IKE Copper-Gold District (January 19, 2024).

Copper is a critical mineral that plays a key role in the global energy transition with surging demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure projects.  Growing demand was already expected to collide with a lack of new projects coming online later in the decade but recent closures and production cuts have shown how vulnerable existing production is, leading industry analysts to forecast supply deficits and a rapidly tightening copper market in 2024 and 2025.  Further, over 60 countries at the 2023 COP28 climate change conference backed a plan to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030.  This plan is expected to generate some 4.2 million tons in extra copper demand by that time, according to a recent report [1].

We believe the outlook for the copper market is bright and the need for development of new copper resources is clear.  Hence, Amarc will continue to focus on developing the kind of district-scale high-value copper-gold assets that major mine operators want and the world needs.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Amarc's team inclusive of our partners, consultants and contractors in 2023, and the indigenous groups, local governments and stakeholders whose willingess to collaborate with us led to the successful execution of our programs in 2023.  I would also like to thank our shareholders for your interest and support of the Company.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Amarc,

Dr. Diane Nicolson
President & CEO
Amarc Resources Ltd.

 

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/03/copper-appears-set-to-rally-more-than-75percent-by-2025-analysts-say.html

Dr. Roy Greig, a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical content of this letter.

 

 

 

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