Key Investor Takeaways
- CEO Gord Neal says he likes the early core from Smart Creek but is hoping for wider intercepts. No assays have been released.
- Domestic Metals is drilling at an angle through the area of the best hole drilled by Rio Tinto, which owns 40% of the joint venture. That hole returned 109.73 meters grading 0.75% copper.
- Surface samples from 2025 ran as high as 102 g/t gold, 23.1% copper, and 3,810 g/t silver, and coincide with the geophysical targets.
- The fully funded program is up to 9,000 meters in six to eight holes, with initial assays expected six to eight weeks after drilling starts.
- HoldCo Markets maintained a CA$0.75 price target in a September 8 note.
- S&P Global projects copper demand will rise 50% by 2040 as electricity use and AI data centers grow.
CEO Sizes Up the First Core From Smart Creek
The first core out of the ground at Smart Creek in Montana looks encouraging, says Gord Neal, president and CEO of Domestic Metals Corp. (DMCU:TSXV; DMCUF:OTCQB; 03E0:FSE), though he wants to see more of it.
“I’m hoping for wider intercepts,” Neal told the Investing News Network at the Precious Metals Summit in Beaver Creek, Colorado, in a video posted on YouTube on October 2.
The company is drilling through the area of Rio Tinto Plc’s (RIO:NYSE; RIO:ASX; RIO:LSE; RTNTF:OTCMKTS) best hole at the project, which returned 109.73 meters grading 0.75% copper. Rio drilled that hole vertically in 2022, Neal said, and Domestic’s geologists believe the mineralization is a dipping structure.
“You really should drill a dipping structure at an angle,” he said. The new hole runs oblique to the mineralization and also targets a breccia zone.
The geologists are looking for continuity in the first holes, Neal said. No assays have been released.
‘The Highest Surface Samples I’ve Ever Encountered’
Samples from the company’s 2025 field program ran as high as 102 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 23.1% copper, and 3,810 g/t silver, according to a September 8 release.
“Those are the highest surface samples I’ve ever encountered,” Neal said. The samples coincide with the geophysics, he said, which lets the team vector toward the centers of the porphyry and carbonate replacement deposit (CRD) systems it believes are there.
Domestic added to an induced polarization survey Rio Tinto had run, and Neal said the team was surprised by how strongly the Radio Tower target and the ground southeast of Smart Creek responded.
The Smart Creek holes are meant to verify the CRD system. Future work will focus on the Sunrise target to the west and southwest, he said.
Permits come faster in Montana than in Arizona, Nevada, or New Mexico, Neal said. The company has had no problems with the U.S. Forest Service and has met with residents of Philipsburg, the nearest town, which he described as a mining community.
Neal said he is fairly confident the assays will match or exceed Rio’s 109-meter intercept.
In Butte’s Backyard, With Rio Tinto as a Partner
Smart Creek covers 8,000 hectares, about 50 kilometers northwest of the Butte Mine Complex, in a district the company says produced 24.8 billion pounds of copper. Neal said the project sits in the same geologic trend, in reactive host rocks of the same age.
HoldCo Markets maintained its CA$0.75 price target on Domestic Metals.
Rio Tinto owns 40% of the joint venture, according to the release. Domestic can earn up to 60%, and Rio drilled at 26 of 40 permitted sites, Streetwise Reports previously reported.
Rio’s hole SMCR0022 returned the 109.73-meter intercept, including 89 meters of 0.97% copper.
The program is up to 9,000 meters in an estimated six to eight holes and is fully funded from the treasury, the company said. Three holes of 600 to 800 meters at Smart Creek come first, followed by four at the Sunrise Mine target. Initial assays were expected six to eight weeks after drilling started.
In May, Domestic closed a private placement of 10,973,700 units at CA$0.28 for gross proceeds of about CA$3.07 million.