en.Wedoany.com Reported - Selkirk Copper Mines (TSX-V: SCMI) is advancing the restart of the former Minto copper-gold-silver mine in central Yukon, Canada, concurrently conducting resource drilling and feasibility study field data collection during the same summer season. Located approximately 250 kilometers north of Whitehorse, within the territory of the Selkirk First Nation (the company's largest shareholder), the mine possesses infrastructure that many restart projects lack, including a 4,100-tonne-per-day processing plant, a 400-person camp, water treatment facilities, open-pit and underground workings, road access, and grid power. Current resources stand at 12.6 million tonnes indicated at 1.20% copper, 0.46 g/t gold, and 4.3 g/t silver, plus 23.7 million tonnes inferred at 1.05% copper, for a combined total of approximately 881 million pounds of copper. An updated resource estimate and economic assessment are scheduled for release later this month.

In a traditional mine restart process, companies typically complete resource drilling and update resources before initiating the geotechnical, geometallurgical, and environmental work required for a feasibility study. Selkirk is running these two work streams in parallel, allowing engineering inputs to mature alongside resource inputs rather than sequentially. Company President and CEO M. Colin Joudrie described this parallel plan as a coordinated push toward the feasibility study, stating that the team is advancing a broad technical and commercially oriented work program to support the feasibility study expected to commence in the third quarter of 2026. He noted that geotechnical data, geometallurgical testing, and infill drilling data collected from the Phase 2 50,000-meter drilling program will support feasibility-level detailed mine planning.

Phase 2 drilling began in May 2026 and, as of June, has completed 104 holes totaling 27,300 meters, representing 54% of the planned 50,000 meters, with an average daily productivity of approximately 120 meters per day and a peak single-drill rate of 220 meters per day. The company aims to complete the drilling program by the end of August, with high productivity attributed to the team's site-specific knowledge accumulated over the past nine months, a continuity that also reduces execution risk for the concurrently initiated feasibility work.

The first batch of reported assay results covers the initial nine holes, focusing on mineralization near development areas. Infill drilling at the 117 Lens returned 22.7 meters at 1.02% copper, 0.35 g/t gold, and 4.2 g/t silver from a depth of 316.9 meters, confirming grade continuity and thickness in an area adjacent to existing underground mining infrastructure. A newly identified lens near the underground portal returned 29.1 meters at 0.48% copper, 0.21 g/t gold, and 2.3 g/t silver, which the company described as marginally economic but confirming widespread mineralization immediately adjacent to existing development. These tonnes located near portals or existing workings carry lower incremental development costs than greenfield tonnage, and their continuity directly serves restart mine planning.

Beyond infill work, exploration step-out holes extended known high-grade zones. At Minto North, a 30-meter step-out hole intersected 4.5 meters at 2.22% copper, 0.41 g/t gold, and 5.3 g/t silver at a depth of 116.6 meters, contained within a broader 11.9-meter interval grading 1.16% copper, 0.31 g/t gold, and 3.2 g/t silver, with mineralization open to the west. At Minto East, a 50-meter step-out hole intersected 5.9 meters at 2.33% copper, 1.98 g/t gold, and 22.3 g/t silver at a depth of 142 meters, extending a narrow high-grade zone beyond previous mining boundaries. Joudrie stated that a key objective of the Phase 1 and Phase 2 drilling programs is to make meaningful additions to mine life in a cost-effective manner, and current progress is achieving that goal.

Selkirk disclosed that the 2026 mineral resource estimate and Preliminary Economic Assessment are scheduled for completion in the second half of July. The updated resource will set the tonnage and grade upon which mine planning is based, while the economic assessment will translate that into the first public reading of restart economics under current metal prices. The technical program launched this summer covers the full scope of the feasibility study, including geotechnical drilling and test pits around planned open pits, underground development, portals, waste rock, and tailings facilities; geometallurgical testing to characterize mineralization types; structural geological modeling; borehole surveys; and environmental baseline monitoring. The company's published timeline shows the feasibility study expected to be completed by mid-2027, with first production targeted for mid-2028, a mine life of 12 to 15 years, and production scale approaching the mine's historical output of up to 30,000 tonnes of copper, 35,000 ounces of gold, and 350,000 ounces of silver per year.