White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN) restarts Rae drilling as basin-scale copper system takes shape

White Cliff Minerals has reactivated field operations at its Rae Copper Project in Nunavut, with the first mobilisation flight delivering drilling consumables and camp supplies to site and enabling the restart of drilling activities.

The 2026 programme follows prior work that confirmed sediment-hosted copper mineralisation and is supported by additional geological and geophysical interpretation that has refined targeting across the broader basin.

Highlights

• First mobilisation flight delivered drilling consumables and camp supplies, with camp restart underway
• RC drilling at Danvers to commence in coming weeks targeting expansion along the 8 km Teshierpi Fault Zone
• Diamond drilling to follow approximately 4 weeks after RC commencement
• Previous Stark drilling returned 3.5m @ 7.2% Cu within 12m @ 2.45% Cu from 287m
• Copper mineralisation defined over 4.3 km N S strike along the Herb Dixon Fault
• Extensive prospective sedimentary horizons identified across the Rae Basin with multiple untested targets
• Initial Stark Hulk basin target area spans 60 km2 within a broader 100 km2 basin system
• Wide spaced drilling planned to test extensions east and north of known mineralisation

The current programme marks a shift from initial discovery drilling toward a more structured evaluation of basin-scale potential.

Work completed over the Australian summer has identified extensive sedimentary horizons across the Rae Basin, with geological interpretation linking mineralisation to major basin-scale structures, particularly the Herb Dixon Fault, which is interpreted to have acted as a conduit for copper-bearing hydrothermal fluids.

Drilling completed in 2025 confirmed sediment-hosted copper mineralisation at the base of the Rae Group, located at a redox boundary with the underlying Husky Creek Formation basalts and red-bed sediments.

Pyrite within the sediments had been replaced with chalcopyrite, with additional chalcopyrite disseminated through the host sequence and forming crosscutting veinlets, while later quartz-calcite-chalcopyrite veins crosscut both the basement and the Rae Group.

The integration of MobileMT and airborne EM datasets has refined the search space and identified conductive zones east and north of previous drilling that remain untested.

These areas are adjacent to known mineralisation and represent priority targets for the upcoming programme, with drilling designed on a wide-spaced grid to systematically test extensions of the system before any infill work is considered.

The exploration approach reflects typical sediment-hosted copper methodology, where early-stage drilling is designed to delineate the extent of mineralisation across a basin rather than immediately define a resource.

In this case, White Cliff intends to extend drilling east and north of known mineralisation within the Stark Hulk sub basin, while also conducting regional drilling along the NW trending Rae Group unconformity where several high priority targets have already been identified.

As Managing Director Troy Whittaker note,

“Initial drilling at Stark confirmed a high-grade sedimentary-hosted copper discovery, highlighted by 3.5m at 7.2% Cu within 12m at 2.45% Cu from 287m, validating the Company’s basin-hosted copper exploration model. Copper mineralisation has now been intercepted across kilometre-scale drilling along the western basin and Herb Dixon Fault Zone, pointing to the potential for a large mineralised system. With new geophysical datasets now integrated into the geological model, we are increasingly confident in our ability to target and expand higher-grade zones within the basin.”

The Rae project sits within a broader mineralised province that hosts numerous high-grade copper occurrences and includes a historic estimate at Danvers of 4.16 million tons at a grade of 2.96% Cu, which is not reported in accordance with the JORC Code.

From an operational standpoint, the immediate focus is on execution, namely commencing RC drilling, transitioning to diamond drilling, and testing priority conductive targets identified through recent geophysical work.

The 2026 programme is structured to assess the scale, continuity and grade potential of the emerging system, with results expected to define the extent of mineralisation across the basin and guide subsequent phases of exploration.