This week, the company reported “juicy” copper and gold hits from twin holes at the Caribou Dome deposit.

Results included of 24.8m at 9.8% copper and 14.5g/t silver from 2.4m, including 4.9m at 13.6% copper and 20.4g/t silver; 4.4m at 14.1% copper and 16.9g/t silver from 11.7m; and 22.6m at 8.1% copper and 13.5g/t silver from 3.7m, including 5.8m at 12.4% copper and 21.3g/t silver.

PolarX executive chairman Mark Bojanjac told the Resources Rising Stars Conference on the Gold Coast yesterday that the results had “knocked the company’s socks off”.

He likened the results to the early days of Sandfire Resources’ DeGrussa copper-gold discovery in Western Australia back in 2010.

“In fact, a bit wider than they had, a bit higher grade than they had, and they’re two or three metres from surface,” Bojanjac said.

The holes were drilled next to holes already in the resource but improved modern assaying techniques have returned material increases in grades over extended drilled widths compared with historical results in the adjacent holes.

“It became very apparent that very few labs have the equipment to properly process copper when it’s in extreme or hyper grades,” Bojanjac said.

“They tend to tap out at 5-8% copper.”

PolarX now believes the average grades could be higher than first thought and as a result, the company plans to re-assay historical pulps.

Caribou Dome already has a resource of 224,375t of contained copper at around 3% copper.

Recent drilling also extended known copper mineralisation to around 500m below surface, representing a 170m down-depth extension below the current resource.

Assays awaited

PolarX is also keenly awaiting assays for two holes drilled 60m to the west of Caribou Dome.

Last week, the company reported the holes intersected massive sulphides with visible chalcopyrite.

One hole contained a broad massive/semi-massive sulphide zone of 57.5m with significant visible chalcopyrite, while the other intersected five zones of massive and semi-massive sulphides, with visible chalcopyrite, totalling 35.4m.

“We’re definitely onto something else out to the west,” Bojanjac said. “It’s definitely got scale.

“We don’t have the assays yet, but I’ll put it to you: our guys are pretty good at picking grade – we are certain that it’ll be high-grade.”

PolarX has also identified a large magnetic anomaly to the east, where rock chips have returned up to 18g/t gold and 5% copper.

The company’s geologists believe it could represent a feeder zone.

Near Caribou Dome, the Zackly deposit has resources of 45,000t of contained copper and 213,000oz of contained gold and remains underexplored.

Northern Star Resources is PolarX’s largest shareholder at 14% and is also fully funding exploration at Alaska Range.

Northern Star can earn up to 70% interest in Alaska Range by spending up to US$39 million over five years.

The company has already contributed US$11 million for the first two years.

A further 1700m of drilling is planned before the end of the current field season.

The Alaska Range project spans 35km and is up to 15km, with much of it never having seen a drill hole.

Bojanjac is confident the company’s vast landholding will deliver a “big one” that could run for at least 40 years.

Economics improving

PolarX completed a scoping study on Alaska Range in 2024, outlining capital costs of US$147 million for a 9.5-year operation that would generate life-of-mine revenue of almost US$1.5 billion with total EBITDA of US$825 million.

The study returned a pre-tax net present value of A$625 million, an internal rate of return of 74% and a 1.6-year payback period.

However, the economics were based on metal prices of US$8500/t of copper, US$1900/oz of gold and US$25/oz of silver.

Today, copper is trading at near-record levels of just under US$15,000/t, gold is at US$4400/oz and silver is at US$68/oz.

“If I recount that today with just those metrics, without any bump in resource grade, without any resource increase since 2023, you are talking in the order of about US$1.8 billion dollars in net present value,” Bojanjac said.

PolarX’s market capitalisation is just under A$69 million, which Bojanjac described as “ridiculous”.

“So, I put it to you: the Northern Star money that’s been going into this JV has already shown resoundingly that there’s more to this thing than we’re currently being given credit for,” he said.