The First Assay
Friday Drill Digest
TSX · TSX-V · CSE · NYSE-A · Nasdaq · August 7, 2026
3 companies · 19 qualifying holes · 3 jurisdictions
Perpetua owned the tape. First drilling at Stibnite in nearly a decade returned 6.4 m of 16.2 g/t gold from surface and — more consequentially — Hangar Flats intercepts running 8.3% antimony with 4.6% tungsten, establishing tungsten as a second critical mineral on the property and taking the stock up 24%. Only three companies cleared the screen across 19 intercepts, but all three sit in stable jurisdictions (Idaho, Ontario, Scotland) and all three are critical-mineral or nickel stories rather than conventional gold. Canada Nickel takes Hole of the Day on the deterministic GT rule with 801 m of 0.26% nickel at Reid — Perpetua’s C$4.0B market cap, not its geology, is what kept it out.
⚑ Hole of the Day
◉ SHALLOW · FROM 41.6M INFILL · RESOURCE CANADA · STABLE ULTRAMAFIC DUNITE
Canada Nickel CNC TSX-V · C$391M
Reid Nickel Sulphide Project, Canada (Ontario)
REI26-90B: 801.4 m of 0.26% Ni* from 41.6 m
GT 208.4 %·m EXCEPTIONAL | AuEq·m 392.2 Ni+Co basis | GT/MCap 0.53× (Ni) | Deposit Ultramafic |
Eight hundred metres of continuously mineralised dunite is a genuinely large intercept — the hole ended in 0.26% nickel after 801 m and never left the ultramafic. That is the Timmins awaruite story in one number. But be clear about what it is: this is infill drilling into an already-published 2.3-billion-tonne resource, not a discovery, and 0.26% Ni is a bulk-tonnage grade that lives or dies on strip ratio and a magnetic-separation flowsheet, not on the assay. The framework’s nickel thresholds were written for massive sulphide, so any hole of this width clears “Exceptional” almost automatically — read the GT as scale, not tenor. The sister hole REI26-92A is the more interesting rock: 4.5 m of 1.01% Ni within 43.5 m of 0.54%, the highest grades yet at Reid and the first hint of a higher-tenor core rather than uniform low-grade dunite. At 0.53× GT/MCap Canada Nickel is the only mid-cap on the sheet offering real leverage, and it is the sole nickel-primary intercept in the trailing archive — there is no 30-day peer to rank it against. Watch the remaining seven holes of the nine-hole program for whether that 0.54% zone has continuity.
* Drilled widths — true width not determined pending geological modelling.
GT/MCap Spotlight — Top 5
Ni and WO₃ metrics are on different price bases — not directly comparable across metals.
| WINS RBD028 Ni | 1.99× |
| WINS RBD029 Ni | 1.01× |
| CNC REI26-90B Ni ★ HOTD | 0.53× |
| CNC REI26-92A Ni | 0.43× |
| PPTA SB580 Au | 0.03× |
Winshear tops the sheet at 1.99×, but read that for what it is: a C$6.2M shell where any real intercept dominates the ratio. Canada Nickel at 0.53× is the best “clean” number — a mid-cap with genuine leverage. Perpetua has the best geology on the sheet by a distance and the worst value-per-dollar, at 0.03×.
Today’s Qualifying Intercepts — Top 7 of 19
| RATING | COMPANY | METAL | HOLE | M | GRADE | GT | AuEq·m | GT/MCap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXC | Perpetua PPTA | WO₃ | SB522 ✓ | 9.8 | 8.3% Sb / 4.6% W | 56.9 | 2,060 | 0.01 |
| EXC | Perpetua PPTA | WO₃ | SB519 ✓ | 22.9 | 3.2% Sb / 1.2% W | 34.7 | 1,325 | 0.01 |
| EXC | Perpetua PPTA | WO₃ | SB597 ✓ | 21.3 ◉ | 3.2 g/t Au / 0.9% W | 24.2 | 843 | 0.01 |
| EXC ★ | Canada Nickel CNC | Ni | REI26-90B* | 801.4 ◉ | 0.26% Ni | 208.4 | 392 | 0.53 |
| EXC | Canada Nickel CNC | Ni | REI26-92A* | 576.6 ◉ | 0.29% Ni | 167.2 | 317 | 0.43 |
| GREAT | Winshear WINS | Ni | RBD028 ✓ | 69.0 ◉ | 0.18% Ni / 0.07% Cu | 12.4 | 31 | 1.99 |
| GOOD | Winshear WINS | Ni | RBD029 ✓ | 8.2 | 0.77% Ni / 1.14% Cu | 6.3 | 25 | 1.01 |
↗ View all 19 intercepts in Google Sheets
+12 not shown (3-row per-company cap), all Perpetua: SB580 Great Au 103.7 · SB582 Great 94.5 · SB581 Great 78.1 · SB588 Great 55.7 · SB527 Great Sb 36.0 · plus 7 Good (SB579, SB578, SB584, SB595, SB576, SB577, SB524)
Near-Miss
Perpetua SB585 — 5.5 m of 1.1 g/t Au, 0.3% Sb (GT 6.1, 0.94× polymetallic screen)
Omineca WD25-41 — 1.07 m of 4.84 g/t Au (GT 5.2, 0.52×). Narrow but material: the first hard-rock lode gold at Wingdam, 500 m west of the paleoplacer workings it has been mining, supporting a proximal-source model.
✓ True width stated in PR · * Drilled width, TW not determined · ◉ From ≤200 m (shallow)
GT thresholds — Au: Good >10, Great >50, Exceptional >200 g/t·m · Sb: Good >5, Great >20, Exceptional >60 %·m · WO₃: Good >1, Great >5, Exceptional >20 %·m (through-cycle APT basis) · Ni: Good >5, Great >10, Exceptional >40 %·m
AuEq: Au $3,200/oz · Ag $33/oz · Cu $13,700/t · APT $3,300/mtu · Ni $17,000/t · Co $56,000/t · GT/MCap uses C$ market cap at August 7, 2026
Perpetua quotes elemental W%; converted WO₃% = W% × 1.261. WO₃ ratings use a through-cycle APT price (~$1,000/mtu) while AuEq·m uses spiked spot ($3,300/mtu) — AuEq will look rich relative to the rating by design.
GT thresholds — Au: Good >10, Great >50, Exceptional >200 g/t·m · Sb: Good >5, Great >20, Exceptional >60 %·m · WO₃: Good >1, Great >5, Exceptional >20 %·m (through-cycle APT basis) · Ni: Good >5, Great >10, Exceptional >40 %·m
AuEq: Au $3,200/oz · Ag $33/oz · Cu $13,700/t · APT $3,300/mtu · Ni $17,000/t · Co $56,000/t · GT/MCap uses C$ market cap at August 7, 2026
Perpetua quotes elemental W%; converted WO₃% = W% × 1.261. WO₃ ratings use a through-cycle APT price (~$1,000/mtu) while AuEq·m uses spiked spot ($3,300/mtu) — AuEq will look rich relative to the rating by design.
Not Screened
Aeonian Resources (ALTN · TSX-V · C$3.5M) — Koocanusa Copper Project (Jake Target), British Columbia. Best result: 0.69 m of 77.7 g/t silver; best copper 607 ppm over 0.50 m. Select assay samples only — no mineralised intervals were reported from the five-hole, 1,229 m program, so there is nothing to apply a GT threshold to.
Teuton Resources (TUO · TSX-V) — August 7 release restating JV partner Tudor Gold’s Perfectstorm results at Treaty Creek. Same physical holes, already screened and archived on August 6 under Tudor Gold — excluded to avoid double-counting one drill program under two issuers.
Teuton Resources (TUO · TSX-V) — August 7 release restating JV partner Tudor Gold’s Perfectstorm results at Treaty Creek. Same physical holes, already screened and archived on August 6 under Tudor Gold — excluded to avoid double-counting one drill program under two issuers.
Week in Review — August 3 to August 7
| DAY | RATING | COMPANY | METAL | HOLE | GT | AuEq·m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fri | EXC | Perpetua | WO₃ | SB522 | 56.9 | 2,060 |
| Fri | EXC | Perpetua | WO₃ | SB519 | 34.7 | 1,325 |
| Fri | EXC | Perpetua | WO₃ | SB597 | 24.2 | 843 |
| Thu | EXC | Luca Mining | Au | CMUG-26-50 | 216.8 | 555 |
| Wed | EXC | Revival Gold | Au | BT26-255D | 451.7 | 452 |
| Wed | EXC | Osisko Gold | Au | PSP-26-004 | 441.3 | 441 |
| Thu | EXC | Founders Metals | Au | FR249 | 399.6 | 400 |
| Wed | GREAT | Talon Metals | Cu | 25TK0567A | 120.0 | 398 |
| Fri | EXC | Canada Nickel | Ni | REI26-90B ★ | 208.4 | 392 |
| Thu | GREAT | Luca Mining | Au | CMUG-26-49 | 100.7 | 391 |
Ranked by AuEq·m across all five sessions. Perpetua’s three tungsten intercepts top the week by a wide margin, but note the AuEq basis: at spot APT ($3,300/mtu) tungsten carries an outsized equivalent value. On a through-cycle APT price those three holes would rank alongside — not above — Revival’s 131.7 m of 3.43 g/t and Osisko’s 4.6 m of 95.93 g/t.
THE FIRST ASSAY
thefirstassay.com
Au $3,200/oz · Ag $33/oz · Cu $13,700/t · APT $3,300/mtu · Ni $17,000/t
Not investment advice.
Not investment advice.
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