FireFly hits key milestones at Newfoundland copper-gold project
FireFly Metals Ltd. [FFM-TSX, ASX] said it has passed key milestones on the path to an upscaled production restart at its Green Bay copper-gold project in Newfoundland.
The company said it has secured environmental approval for the processing plant, construction permitting has commenced and metallurgical tests have returned extremely strong results.
FireFly shares were unchanged Tuesday at 95 cents and trade in a 52-week range of $1.14 and 59 cents.
The company is planning a staged resumption of mining operations at Green Bay with the construction of a new processing facility at the mine. The company has received a conditional release from further detailed environmental and socio-economic assessment by the Province of Newfoundland for an initial upscaled restart involving a plant with a throughput capacity of 1.8 million tonnes per annum.
Investors are cautioned that the plant capacity is a technical specification forming part of the environmental submission and not a forecast of the estimated production of the mining operation. Forecast production will not be estimated until the company has announced the results of its scoping study.
A mineral resource update is planned for the fourth quarter of 2025.
FireFly is an emerging copper-gold company with a focus on advancing the high-grade Green Bay Copper Gold Project in Newfoundland. The Green Bay projects hosts a measured and indicated resource of 24.4 million tonnes of 1.9% for 460,000 tonnes of CuEq and an inferred resource of 34.5 million tonnes at 2.0% for 690,000 tonnes of CuEq. The company has a clear strategy for rapidly grow the copper-gold mineral resource to demonstrate a globally significant copper-gold asset. In keeping with that goal, the company recently launched a 130,000-metre drilling program.
FireFly also hosts a 70% interest in the high-grade Pickle Crow Gold Project in Ontario. The current inferred resource stands at 11.9 million tonnes at 7.2 g/t or 2.8 million ounces of gold.
In its latest press release, the company said the metallurgical testwork, completed on 1,500 kg of samples from the Ming Mine, is a key component of economic studies now underway, which will be incorporated into the scoping study due for completion in the March quarter of 2026.
There are two distinct styles of mineralisation at the Ming underground mine at Green Bay. One consists of the upper copper-gold-rich volcanogenic massive sulphides (VMS) lenses. This sits above a broad copper stringer zone known as the Footwall Zone.
The bulk samples for metallurgical testing incorporated representative samples of both VMS and FWZ. Using an optimized flow sheet, metal recoveries to final copper concentrate from all samples averaged +98% copper, +75% gold, and +78% silver. Recent gravity and conventional leach testing of the pyrite flotation tails has achieved further improvements in precious metals recovery, with gold increasing to +85% and +84% for silver.