This $3 Million Copper Explorer Named Three Targets. The Drill Is Next

This $3 Million Copper Explorer Named Three Targets. The Drill Is Next

"We will witness the world, pretty much how we call it, wrapped in copper," Valentin Saitarli said in an interview in July, weeks after the company hired him as chief technology officer. "The entire roads for electric cars will use lots of copper. In Miami, almost every apartment is all electric. Public transportation will be electric. We're moving into a fully electrified world. Almost everything we need for our existence, we excavate, we pull it out from earth."

Copper is up about 45% in a year and set a record above $6.87 a pound this month. NRED (NREDF) has gone the other way, worth about $3 million against a 52-week high of $1.73, on 16,078 hectares 10 kilometres west of Hudbay Minerals' (HBM) producing Copper Mountain mine.

The targets got sharper

Nine selective samples from three trenches dug in 2023 averaged 0.639% copper, with values up to 1.670%.

"The trenches returned copper values up to 1.67%, yet they appear to sit on the edge of the broader IP system," Goss said in the Aug. 21 update. "West and southwest of the trenches, we see stronger targets, several supported by potassium alteration, resistivity and copper-in-soil anomalies. These are clear targets that warrant further testing."

Two of those targets, 400 metres and 1.4 kilometres southwest, now have names.

Two other August releases filled in the map, with 23 potassium anomalies and 18 structural corridors and then 926 soil samples matched against airborne resistivity. "The airborne data provide the property-scale view, while the soils add local detail," Goss said. "Together, they give us a stronger framework for mapping, follow-up, and future drill targeting."

Crews are back on the ground

The crew mobilized this week to "continue soil sampling, extending coverage across, and along, Lamont Ridge," per the Aug. 27 release. Working the existing forestry roads is, in the company's words, "a comparatively inexpensive means of obtaining meaningful geochemical analysis over a large area." What is in the field now is sampling.

Saitarli says the industry moves too slowly. "This is one of the most outdated industries that impacts everything," he said. "Today copper mining takes 15 years to develop. Why on earth do we develop this mine so late? Well, there are lots of red tapes in terms of government permits, and they make it extremely complicated." What it needs, he said, is "people who can go faster through red tape, people who bring knowledge from different industries." On where he is looking: "Canada is becoming a leader in my segment. It has tremendous mineral resources."

The name changed to match the software

On Aug. 12 the company said it would become NRED Intelligent Mining, to "reflect the Company's mission to incorporate artificial intelligence technology into the mineral exploration process." Same ticker, nothing for holders to do.

Saitarli is blunter about the tools than the branding is. "Artificial intelligence and computer vision is actually not that sophisticated as many people think," he said. "Our eyes, they've been developing for hundreds of millions of years. We are way more advanced, way more sophisticated. We cannot simulate reality with so many variations."

On remote sensing, he said: "You can use a drone with a radioactive sensor and just fly on top of the ground, and it can detect radiation," he said. "So you understand, okay, here is uranium."

The mine he was hired to picture is further out. "We think it's going to look like sort of Star Wars," he said. "Robots will be flying all over on top of the mine, scanning the facility. Those robots on the ground will get direct orders from the flying robots, because they can see the higher picture. They can literally predict where the ground can fall apart." The day we spoke, he said, "we received a report that a stone mine collapsed because of the water in Asia. Could they have predicted it? Of course they could."

Near term, he said, the machine is a second pair of eyes. "Machine will prevent lots of mistakes at first," he said. "And then, when a machine cannot make a decision, a human will explain to the machine what that parameter is actually about." Then "the human can make an instant decision: evacuate this site." He is careful about how much that buys: "but if we use robotics and if we use the AI, we can significantly mitigate these risks." Mining does not get to go backwards, in his telling. "We cannot just go back to where the time was before. It's just impossible to reverse it. The society is different. What we can do, we just can move forward only with the path that is better."

There is no hole yet, and that is the catalyst

NRED has not drilled Wilmac. Every release carries the same line: "No mineral resources or mineral reserves have been identified on the Project." The first hole needs a permit, still being acquired from the previous operator, and money: the July option amendment commits the company to $8.5 million of exploration spending, the first $400,000 due Oct. 1.

It is also the reason to watch it. Juniors re-rate on holes, not interpretations. "Wilmac is a systematically underexplored copper-gold porphyry opportunity in one of British Columbia's premier mineralised belts," Goss said in June, "and our 2026 program puts us on track for the drill program we believe will begin to reveal what lies beneath the surface." After August, a first hole would land on something specific: the proposed 350 to 400 metre test covers the quiet resistive core beside the 1.67% copper trenches and the chargeability beneath it in a single pass.

Where the money goes

• Producers: Hudbay (HBM) , owner of Copper Mountain next door, Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) , Rio Tinto (RIO) , BHP (BHP) , Southern Copper (SCCO) , Teck (TECK) , Ero Copper (ERO) , Vale (VALE) . Barchart's Andrew Hecht argued Aug. 28 for $7 copper.
• The early end: NRED (NREDF) , about $3 million of market value, 52-week high $1.73. Three named targets, a proposed hole, no resource yet.

The bottom line

NRED spent August narrowing 16,078 hectares to a short list, and has crews back on the ground. Saitarli puts the company as a date. "Should we become that company in 2067, or should we become the company in 2028?" he said. "We want it now." At Wilmac the next decision is a drill hole.