お知らせ • Jul 10
Arras Minerals Corp Expands 2026 Drilling Program to 40,000 Metres and Provides Exploration Update
Arras Minerals Corp. had announced that following the closing of the upsized $25 million Bought Deal financing this week, the company is expanding its current 2026 drilling program by 100% to 40,000m for completion by year-end. Drilling is progressing very well, at present, four drills are operating at Elemes. In total 27 holes have been completed, and over 18,000m have been drilled to date. Complete assay results have been received from just 4 holes to date, as preparation and assay laboratories have been dealing with extreme volumes, which have led to increasing delays in receiving final assay results. The Company is working with accredited local and international assay laboratories to try and speed up this process. Drilling in 2026 has focused on the Berezski North, Central and East targets. However, several exploration holes have also been drilled at Novii as well as the K-Ozek epithermal target to determine its potential. At Berezski North, the Company focused initial drilling to explore and better understand the controls and extent of the porphyry and breccia-style mineralization with 8 wide-spaced drill-holes, and assay results for 6 holes are still pending: Holes EL26034, EL26036 and EL26038 were large step-outs, ranging from 200m to 400m, and designed to explore the underlying porphyry mineralization and to see if the breccia zones continued to depth. Holes EL26035 and EL26037 were designed to explore for the eastern continuation of the high-grade breccias to see if they connect with mineralization hit in hole EL25016 located approximately 300m to the east. Hole EL26040 was designed to explore a large chargeability anomaly along the eastern margin of Berezski North target to determine its source. The Company plans to return to drill the Berezski North target next week to conduct a systematic drill program to determine the scale of the porphyry and breccia zones. In May, the Company completed a top of bedrock (KGK) drill program over the Berezski and Aimandai Trends. In total 381 holes were completed, totalling 6,002 m. At Berezski, the KGK drilling targeted the 5 km long magnetic low anomaly between the Berezski Central and Berezski North targets, as well as a large, coincident Cu-Mo soil geochemical anomaly to the north of Berezski North. In addition, high-density KGK drilling was conducted over the Berezski East-K-Ozek trend to determine the scale of the Au anomaly identified in the 2025 KGK program, and an initial drill-program was conducted over the core of the Aimandai trend to define priority targets for future diamond drilling. Assay results from the KGK program are expected to be received over the next few weeks. The Elemes Project comprises two exploration licences covering 531 square kilometres in northeast Kazakhstan, located approximately 13 km southwest of Ekibastuz and just 20 km from Arras's operational base. The project benefits from exceptional infrastructure, with a paved highway crossing the licence, and access to 1100 KVA power lines, heavy rail, and other utilities within a 15 km radius. Situated within the prolific Bozshakol-Chingiz metallogenic belt, Elemes lies near significant regional deposits, including the Beskauga porphyry copper-gold-silver deposit (~80 km east) and KAZ Minerals' Bozshakol copper-gold mine (~60 km northwest), which reported mined grades in First Quarter 2025 of 0.39% Copper and 0.19 g/t gold. Geologically, the property is underlain by interbedded intermediate volcanic and sedimentary rocks intruded by multiple phases of diorite and monzodiorite porphyry. Copper-gold mineralization occurs in sheeted and stockwork quartz-chalcopyrite veins associated with these intrusions. In addition, high-grade low-sulphidation epithermal veins have been mapped on the property, representing a secondary exploration target. Property-wide soil sampling programs defined two extensive Cu-Mo-As geochemical anomalies: the Berezski and Aimandai Trends, both considered priority targets for follow-up exploration drilling. A Phase 1 drill program on the Berezski Trend returned high-grade porphyry/epithermal copper-gold mineralization in results announced in First Quarter 2025. More than 30,000m of drilling has been completed over 2025-2026. The Company adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines for exploration related activities conducted on its property. Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) procedures are overseen by the Qualified Person. Arras Minerals QA/QC protocols are maintained through the insertion of certified reference material (standards), blanks and field duplicates within the sample stream. Drill core is cut at Arras Minerals operations base in Ekibastuz, Kazakhstan by Company personnel. Diamond drill core was sawn in-half with a diamond saw, and then sampled in maximum 2-meter intervals, stopping at geological boundaries, with one-half placed in sealed bags and shipped to the laboratory and the other half retained on site. Each bagged core sample was shipped to ALS Laboratory in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Samples were dried, crushed and pulverized to >80% passing -200 mesh. The prepared sample splits were sent to ALS Chemex's geochemical analysis laboratories in Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland and Lima, Peru for multi-element analysis. Multielement analyses were analyzed with ICP-MS following a four-acid digestion (method ME-MS61) and samples containing >1.0% copper were analyzed via method Cu-OG62. Gold analysis was conducted by ALS Chemex at the analytical laboratory in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Gold was analyzed by fire assay (30 g) with an AA (atomic absorption) finish (method Au-AA23) with detection limits of 0.005 g/t gold. Samples containing greater than 10.0 g/t gold were analyzed by fire assay with a gravimetric finish (method Au-GRA21). ALS is an accredited laboratory that is independent of the Company. Chain of custody is maintained from the drill to the submission to the laboratory preparation facility. The scientific and technical disclosure for this news release has been prepared under the supervision of and approved by Matthew Booth, Vice President of Exploration of Arras Minerals Corp., a Qualified Person for the purposes of NI 43-101. Mr. Booth has over 20 years of mineral exploration experience and is a Qualified Person member of the American Institute of Professional Geologists (CPG 12044). Gold, copper and other mineral equivalents are calculated on the basis set forth in this news release and are based upon the reasonable assumptions as to the prices of various metals and their recoveries assumed by management of the Company on a project-by-project basis as converted metal. All drill-hole intervals are reported as drill widths, as true thicknesses are unknown. Assumed metal prices are: USD 3.75/lb Copper, USD 3,000/oz Gold, USD 35/oz Silver, & USD 30/lb Molybdenum.