High-Grade antimony showings in central Newfoundland and a new interpretation of the polymetallic Buchans River formation bring critical minerals potential
2024 ushered in a new era for Canstar Resources (TSX-V: ROX). With a January financing led by a group of U.S. investors, new management reinitiated district-scale exploration on its flagship projects: Golden Baie—with high-grade gold and antimony showings up to 74 per cent Sb in bedrock—and Buchans-Mary March, high-grade polymetallic VMS occurrences near the historic past-producing Buchans Mine, one of the world’s richest base metals deposits.
“We believe that the world is on the cusp of a commodities supercycle and Canstar is the ideal platform from which to capitalize on a generational opportunity in mining,” says CEO Juan Carlos Giron, Jr. “We were impressed by the local technical team, a distinguished board of directors, cornerstone shareholders Eric Sprott & Altius Minerals Corp., and exploration projects in highly prospective geological settings and a world-class mining district.”
Since then, Canstar has developed a new geological model and priority exploration targets, including investigating the high-grade antimony potential near the past-producing Beaver Brook Antimony Mine.
Antimony is of special importance to national security and defense manufacturing. Production has been dominated by China and Russia, while Canada has had minimal domestic production in recent years, and the U.S. none, relying heavily on Chinese imports. Prices are projected to continue rising in line with geopolitical tensions over trade, Taiwan, and the war in Ukraine, having already doubled by the summer of 2024.
Canstar also staked an additional 1,100 ha. of prospective gold and antimony claims at Golden Baie and 325 ha. of prospective land south of the historic Buchans Mining Camp. The company is positioned for growth with renewed investor interest, aiming to capitalize on historically low asset prices and expand its project portfolio into 2025.
Golden Baie: 549 square kilometres of highly prospective land with high-grade antimony showings
Golden Baie has a similar geological structure to Newfound Gold’s Queensway Project, and exhibits geological similarities to significant gold producers, such as the Fosterville Mine in the Bendigo Zone of Australia’s Victorian Goldfields, which hosts multiple gold deposits greater than 5 Moz.
Anomalous results include over 315 bedrock samples with more than 1 g/t and up to 4,485 g/t Au, several float rock samples with 289 g/t and 197 g/t Au, and till samples with up to 1,049 gold grains (809 pristine). Diamond drilling yielded 9.6 g/t Au over 7.6 m and 20.6 g/t Au over 3.5 m. Yet Golden Baie remains underexplored with many exciting targets.
Antimony is a pathfinder in gold exploration on this structure. Antimony targets on Golden Baie are less than 90 kilometres from the Chinese-owned Beaver Brook Antimony Mine, currently under care and maintenance, which hosted a 2.2-million-tonne deposit grading 3.99 per cent Sb at 1.5 per cent cutoff and was considered the one of the world’s largest antimony deposits outside of China. Two prospects on Canstar’s project feature bedrock and channel samples assaying between 20.4 per cent and 74.4 per cent Sb metal content. Historical drilling intersected 30.6 per cent Sb over 1 m.
Buchans-Mary March: Combined 99 square kilometres of prospective ground for critical minerals near the historic Buchans Mine with a Glencore JV
The Buchans Mine has a rich history, having produced 16M tonnes at 1.33 per cent Cu, 7.56 per cent Pb, 14.51 per cent Zn, 1.37 g/t Au, and 1.26 g/t Ag. The Buchans River Formation, the host unit for these deposits, underlies Canstar’s main Buchans claim at depth, and the largely shallow nature of historic drilling implies the property is underexplored. Canstar has identified a two-kilometre-long conductor anomaly in this host unit just one-and-a-half kilometres south of the historic mine.
Mary March, a joint venture with Glencore, sits along Buchans’ Roberts Arm Belt 25 kilometres east of the Buchans Mine. Canstar trenching discovered a debris flow setting similar to the Buchans deposits with massive sulphide clasts assaying up to 5.7 per cent Cu, 1.6 per cent Pb, 1.8 per cent Zn, 1.2 g/t Au, and 29.4 g/t Ag. Historical drilling intersected a massive sulphide fragment with 9.63 m at 0.64 per cent Cu, 1.8 per cent Pb, 10.1 per cent Zn, 4.2 g/t Au, and 122 g/t Ag. This is a large mineralized system with a proven massive sulphide lens and potential for more.
Junior explorers’ role in securing the West’s CM supply chains
Canstar’s previous efforts have mostly focused on the gold potential at Golden Baie. But with the West’s renewed focus on critical minerals, not only for the energy transition but also for these materials’ importance to defense and national security amid what analysts call a Second Cold War, Canstar plans to focus increasingly on its critical minerals potential along with gold.
Please visit canstarresources.com for more information. Paul Ténière, M.Sc., P.Geo., a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101, approved all technical data.
