On Tuesday, the company raised A$3 million at A6c per share, a nil discount to the last trading price, which is a rare feat. The stock was already trading above the issue price yesterday.

Firetail’s three directors, chairman Rob Jewson, managing director Glenn Poole and director Simon Lawson each plan to chip in A$60,000, subject to shareholder approval.

New and existing institutional and sophisticated investors participated in the placement, joining shareholders York Harbour Metals, Hong Kong Jayson, Spartan Resources and Terra Capital NR Fund.

The funds will allow Firetail to advance the Skyline project in Newfoundland, Canada, and the Picha project in Peru.

“We think we’re exploring in two of the best jurisdictions in the world,” Firetail managing director Glenn Poole told the Resources Rising Stars Summer Series in Brisbane yesterday.

“The next 6-8 months is pretty exciting, lots of things happening and really advancing the projects.”

He added that there would be lots of upcoming news flow.

Skyline

Firetail announced the staged acquisition of the Skyline copper-zinc-silver volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) project in Newfoundland in June last year.

Much like its larger ASX-listed peer FireFly Metals, which has the Green Bay project to the north, Firetail is targeting high-grade copper, zinc and silver.

Skyline historically produced around 100,000 tonnes of ore grading 3-12% copper, 7% zinc and 1-3 ounces per tonne of silver via a small underground mine between 1898 and 1913.

The project has been subject to only limited shallow exploration since then.

“It’s a district-scale VMS, so a polymetallic system – we’ve got zinc, we’ve got silver as well,” Poole said.

“But we’ve got 110 square kilometres and 25 kilometres of prospective strike that is hosting these orebodies and we’re only just starting to scratch the surface with previous works limited to one small part of it.”

Firetail is applying fresh eyes and modern exploration techniques to the unexplored project with the theory that the known mineralisation at Skyline doesn’t exist in isolation since VMS deposits are known to form in clusters.

Previous drilling results have included 29m at 5.25% copper and 9 grams per tonne silver from 147m, including 3.2m at 9.54% copper, 3.5% zinc and 10g/t silver.

Firetail’s recent drilling returned 17.6m at 2% copper, 0.3% zinc and 3.3g/t silver from 170.3m, including 7.1m at 3.4% copper, 0.4% zinc and 5g/t silver, and 4.6m at 2.8% copper, 0.1% zinc and 2.8g/t silver from 140m.

The company recently completed the first helicopter electromagnetic survey ever undertaken across the northern half of the project, which identified five new target areas, including the large Veyron target.

Veyron comprises two modelled EM plates, each with a strike length of 500m, depth extent of 700m and depth to top of conductor of around 120m.

Firetail is planning ground EM over Veyron and the Governor’s target, which is over 1200m long and 400m wide.

The company is also planning a heli-EM survey over the southern half of the project.

Picha

“We’re also targeting tier one porphyry discoveries in Peru, so a big prize there,” Poole said.

“And a good example of the value [potential] is what AusQuest just recently achieved with their discovery there.”

Firetail’s Peru hopes got a boost last month when its Picha project was selected from hundreds of applicants as one of just eight global exploration projects to participate in BHP’s 2025 Xplor program.

Xplor is an exploration accelerator, which provides participants with US$500,000 in non-dilutive funding and technical support from BHP.

“That validates what we think about the project, that it is very good, and BHP coming in and saying they think it’s worth more of a look, it’s just amazing – not just from the funding point of view, but the level of oversight,” Poole said.

“They’re helping us build a better business, better strategies, and just be a better business to move forward.”

Geochemical work is underway on a new target which Poole says looks like a porphyry.

Picha also hosts the more advanced Ichucollo target, where trenching has returned 24m at 1.08% copper, 13.1m at 1.38% copper, 30m a 0.79% copper and 16m at 0.6% copper.

“These are large, broad and rich designs of copper. It’s not just a flash in the pan,” Poole said.

“So short order is drill these targets we know about, and then the second one is develop this larger one.”