Explorer Finds Promising Gold-Copper Resources in BC's Golden Triangle

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Seabridge Gold Inc. (SEA:TSX; SA:NYSE.MKT) announced it has started its 2025 drilling program at its Iskut project, just 30 kilometers by air from its KSM gold-copper project in BC's Golden Triangle.

The program will again employ three helicopter-portable drill rigs and aims to complete at least 8,000 meters of core drilling to advance the Snip North discovery to a maiden resource estimation, the company said in a release.

The CA$13.4 million campaign is fully funded and is focusing on delineating the copper-gold porphyry mineralization discovered during 2024 drilling.

"Last year's discovery at Snip North has given us clear direction on where to focus to deliver new resources in this year's program," Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rudi Fronk said. "That's our first priority. We are also targeting the source intrusion for this prospective resource which we expect to be rooted in a district-scale structural trend, named the Bronson Trend, containing newly recognized additional porphyry targets."

The systems at Iskut are similar in size to the company's nearby KSM deposits, which have strike lengths in the thousands of meters and width/depth dimensions of many hundreds of meters, he said.

"We are optimistic that this year's work will confirm our view of the potential for an entire porphyry district which we had in mind when we acquired the Iskut project in 2016," Fronk said.

'Multiple Porphyry Targets'

According to Seabridge's release, regional geophysical surveys and surface geology have confirmed the district-scale Bronson Trend that connects the Quartz Rise, Bronson Slope, and Snip North occurrences. Substantial high-level expressions of copper-gold (Cu-Au) porphyry systems fall along this regional structural corridor.

"Our efforts over the last several years have refined the potential for discovery of multiple porphyry targets embedded in this structure," the company said. "Results from this year's Snip North program will be integrated into this understanding to guide our efforts to advance additional porphyry mineral systems at Iskut."

The company holds a 100% interest in several North American gold projects. Its principal assets are the KSM project, Iskut, the Courageous Lake project is in Canada's Northwest Territories, the Snowstorm project in the Getchell Gold Belt of Northern, Nevada and the 3 Aces project in the Yukon Territory.

Discussions for KSM Partner Ongoing

In an updated research note on March 13, Taylor Combaluzier and David Talbot of Red Cloud noted that KSM is "one of the largest undeveloped gold-copper projects in the world."

Seabridge has reported advancing discussions with several potential partners for the project. The Red Cloud analysts maintained their Buy rating on the stock and increased their target price to CA$53.90 per share, a 234% return at the time the note was written.

Finding a JV partner for KSM remains "the most important catalyst for the stock," noted B. Riley Securities Analyst Nick Giles in an updated research note in February. He rated the stock a Buy with a US$50 per share price target.

"The KSM project in British Columbia stands as the world's largest undeveloped gold project in terms of resources," wrote Giles.

KSM "boasts proven and probable reserves of 47.3 (million ounces) Moz gold, 160 Moz silver, and 7.3 billion pounds of copper. We believe there are very few comparable developments today, especially with all three metals combined in one location," he said. "We believe the economies of scale and tier 1 jurisdiction make for very attractive net economics and should ultimately translate to a JV partner."

The Catalyst: Gold Reacts to Employment Data

Gold continued to experience solid profit-taking Tuesday, trading near session lows, Neils Christensen wrote for Kitco. The U.S. labor market appeared to be stabilizing, with the number of job openings remaining near pre-pandemic levels.

"The gold market is showing little reaction to the latest employment data, as price action is currently driven by momentum flows," Christensen wrote. "Gold is undergoing expected profit-taking after rallying nearly 3% on Monday. Spot gold was last trading at $3,337 an ounce, down 1.29% on the day."

According to some analysts, gold could continue to face headwinds as the latest employment data suggests a fairly resilient labor market, he wrote. The Federal Reserve has reiterated that it is in no hurry to cut interest rates, given that inflation pressures remain elevated and the labor market remains relatively healthy.

Some experts are predicting higher prices for gold's bull market. Garth Friesen wrote for Forbes on March 15 that DoubleLine Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Gundlach said, "I think gold will make it to US$4,000. I'm not sure that'll happen this year, but I feel like that's the measured move anticipated by the long consolidation at around US$1,800 on gold."

And according to an April 10 post on Goldfix, Goldman Sachs has revised raised the upper boundary of its forecast range for the end of the year to US$3,520 an ounce and even introduced a "tall-risk scenario" as high as US$4,500 an ounce.

Ownership and Share Structure

Refinitiv provided a breakdown of the company's ownership and share structure, where management and insiders own approximately 3% of the company. According to Refinitiv, CEO and Chairman Rudi P. Fronk owns 1.25%.

Refinitiv reports that institutions own about 52% of the company. Friedberg Mercantile Group Ltd. owns 16.08%, Van Eck Associates Corp. owns 2.96%, Kopernik Global Investors L.L.C. owns 7.3%, and Paulson & Co. Inc. owns 2.06%.

According to Refinitiv, there are about 100.54 million shares outstanding, while the company has a market cap of CA$1.77 billion and trades in a 52-week range of CA$13.44 and CA$28.39.