Element 29 Resources (ECU.V) has announced a third drill rig has been dispatched to its flagship Elida copper-molybdenum-silver project in Peru. This will significantly accelerate this year’s exploration program, which consists of up to 7,000 meters of diamond drilling. The drill program will test the known mineralized body for extensions beyond the current pit shell (which hosts almost 322 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.32% copper, 0.029% molybdenum and 2.61 g/t silver).
As the 2024 drill program yielded some impressive intervals with several holes encountering mineralization over a length of in excess of 1,000 meters, the current drill program also includes holes that will reach depths of in excess of 1,000 meters to drill-test the mineralization at depth. The location of these holes was based on their ability to also provide data from the upper part of those holes that would serve as additional infill drilling within the current pit shell.
The company’s press release contains more details on the holes that are currently being drilled, and we encourage you to have a look at the update. We expect to see the first assay results by late November with a second batch to be released in 2026.
The ongoing drill program is fully funded by the company’s strong treasury. Virtually all warrants that were slated to expire in September were exercised, and the company issued 18.4M new shares at C$0.25, raising C$4.6M in the process. This means the current cash position is likely approximately C$8-9M, as the company also closed a C$6.3M placement (with net proceeds of C$6.1M) in August. As the company’s share price is now trading at around C$1, we also expect the options with a near-term expiry date to be exercised. The C$0.50 options expiring in two weeks from now will bring in C$75,000 in the near future, while a more meaningful number will expire in February 2026. The 1.1M options with an exercise price of C$0.45 would bring in almost C$0.5M in cash.
This will allow Element 29 Resources to keep the three drill rigs running to complete the drill program and hopefully the data will support a meaningful resource expansion at Elida. With copper at C$4.80 per pound and molybdenum at C$25/pound, this could be the perfect time to advance a copper-moly project in an accessible area of Peru.
Disclosure: The author holds a long position in Element 29 Resources but recently sold some as the share price has tripled in the past six months. This post is for educational purposes only; be mindful investing in junior mining stocks is risky and you may lose your entire investment if things go wrong. Please read the disclaimer.
