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nortH AMericA

Mason

a hawk

in Eagle

territory

hen Tim Mason officially started as
WEagle Mountain Mining Ltd’s new
chief executive in February last year, he
arrived with the belief there was still plenty
more copper to be found at the company’s
Oracle Ridge project in Arizona, US.
Despite the challenges that have since Eagle Mountain intersected copper mineralisation in 16 of the 17 holes recently drilled into
followed with the COVID-19 pandemic, Ma- its Oracle Ridge copper project in Arizona, all outside the existing resource
son’s theory is proving to be on the money
and the question now is more about how
big the mineralised system at Oracle Ridge wholly-owned US subsidiary, Silver Moun- orebody the justice it deserves.
could possibly be. tain Mining Operations Inc. “Most projects have a bit of a sweet spot
“We’ve had some really good drill hits Ramos was previously president and with tonnes and grade and how you extract
in this last year and nearly every hole has chief operating officer at ASARCO – now it, but if you get going on that a bit too soon,
been hitting something, but it’s about more a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico – which oper- you’re not doing yourself any service and
than that now; it’s about the structure and ates the Mission, Silver Bell and Ray cop- you’ll make a mistake.
the alterations that we’re seeing and what per mines as well as the Hayden and Ray “We know we’ve got a good project here,
we’re actually understanding about the ore- copper smelters, all within a few hours drive but we’ve just got to see how big this is pos-
body,” Mason explained to Paydirt. of Oracle Ridge. sibly going to be first and the drill bit is prov-
“There’s a whole lot of smoke up at Ora- “Manuel just brings such an intimate ing itself so far in that regard.”
cle Ridge and when you look at a lot of the knowledge of the resources sector in Ari- Eagle Mountain has also engaged the
other projects around Arizona they’ve often zona which we see as being absolutely so services of globally renowned skarn expert
got these pretty decent skarns like we’ve valuable to our planned transition from that Larry Meinert to assist with some of the tar-
got, both in size and grade. kind of pre-development/pre-study stage geting in a bid to build out the resource at
“We know there’s a big system lurking we’re in through to actually doing those Oracle Ridge.
nearby, so this is just an incredible oppor- studies and hopefully then moving into pro- Arizona was recently announced as the
tunity. Even if that takes a little while to un- duction,” Mason said. second-best mining jurisdiction globally in
cover, there’s just so much smoke that we “His values really align with our board the Fraser Institute’s annual Mining Invest-
really feel like we can build out the resource and who we are, so having someone of that ment Attractiveness survey. Mason said
[12.2mt @ 1.5% copper, 16.3 g/t silver and ilk is incredibly valuable to our business.” that ranking was justified based on his ex-
0.19 g/t gold] quite significantly. Eagle Mountain recently secured access periences thus far.
“We have a much better handle on the to an area the company has labelled “Gold- “We all know that Western Australia is
geology in and around Oracle Ridge now en Eagle” which includes multiple historic a great place to be in the resource sector,
and that’s probably what gets us most ex- gold-copper mines along a north-west to but Arizona is right up there as well,” Perth-
cited.” south-east trend and is less than 3km from based Mason said.
Mason capped a memorable first year at Oracle Ridge. “It’s equally as hot and it’s equally as
Eagle Mountain by pulling together an $11 Field activities were due to begin at the busy. There are time delays to be able to
million placement to institutional investors time of print, with diamond drilling of po- get drill rigs on and while the labs are prob-
and high net worth individuals in an offering tential gold targets planned for later in the ably not quite as busy as WA, they are
completed at no discount to the company’s quarter. certainly busy. And there’s big demand for
last traded share price of 35c in late Febru- Since September, the company has re- geologists as well.
ary. ported intersecting copper mineralisation in “I can draw many similarities with how
An entity associated with Eagle Moun- 16 of the 17 holes drilled into Oracle Ridge, they do business over there to how it gets
tain managing director and industry identity all outside the existing resource, providing done here in Australia from both a regula-
Charlie Bass contributed $2 million to the further confidence in the orebody’s poten- tory and environmental side. There are
placement. tial ahead of a planned upgrade in the short some subtle differences around permitting
Funds will immediately be tipped into to medium term. and tenure, but it’s still very favourable how
further exploration at Oracle Ridge to be “We’ve got to do what is right by the the system works over there.”
overseen by Manuel Ramos, the newly ap- orebody,” Mason said. “We don’t want to
pointed chief executive of Eagle Mountain’s prematurely get into this without doing the – Michael Washbourne

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