FireFly’s ‘Special’ Copper Project a Rarity
Green Bay continues to grow
FireFly Metals (ASX/TSX: FFM) is continuing to rapidly grow its high-grade Green Bay copper-gold project in Newfoundland, likely making the company a takeover target in a copper-hungry market.
Green Bay has a resource of 1.7 million tonnes of contained copper equivalent at 2.2% CuEq.
“We’ve got 1.1 million ounces of gold as a by-product, and it’s still open and it’s still growing, so it’s one of the highest-grade undeveloped copper projects around,” FireFly CEO Darren Cooke told a Resources Rising Stars event in Adelaide on Thursday.
“This orebody is special and there’s very few opportunities like this on the ASX or the TSX.”
On a contained copper basis, Green Bay is larger than Trilogy Metals’ (TSX: TMQ) Arctic, Evolution Mining’s (ASX: EVN) Ernest Henry, Harmony Gold’s (JSE: HAR) CSA and Foran Mining Corporation’s (TSX: FOM) McIlvenna Bay.
“So, if you’re looking for copper exposure, this is it,” Cooke said.
“The grades are stunning in terms of the lack of opportunities on the ASX and the TSX.”
Earlier this week, FireFly reported new drilling results from the high-grade Core Zone and adjacent volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) zones.
The 800m-plus Core Zone returned 70.8m at 4% CuEq, including a high-grade stringer zone of 19.2m at 7.5% CuEq; and 53.3m at 4.1% CuEq, including an upper zone grading 18.2m at 5.8% CuEq.
The main upper VMS zones returned 11.9m at 8.1% CuEq; 25.7m at 7.8% CuEq; 16.3m at 7.7% CuEq; 11.9m at 6.8% CuEq; and 14m at 5.9% CuEq.
Cooke said Green Bay was an unusually large VMS deposit.
“It’s got over 3000m of strike on it now down-plunge, and there’s multiple zones side by side,” he said.
“Traditionally, these things have a bad reputation of being small, but you do get the freaks of nature. You do get the elephants, and that’s what we’re on to in this particular case.”
Cooke said this week’s results continued the demonstrate the continuity of the orebody.
Studies nearing
The company has six rigs drilling underground with the aim of growing the measured and indicated resource for inclusion in economic studies, which are on track for release by mid-year.
“The infill drilling is really critical for us to add value to this project as we move into our mining studies and declare ore reserves and rescale this operation, because we are rebuilding this operation into something that’s going to be a very large-scale copper producer,” Cooke said.
“We want to put out a study that shows people the true potential of this deposit.”
Cooke said the company would be targeting annual production of more than 50,000t of copper.
Green Bay is a brownfields site, having been in production as recently as 2023.
FireFly acquired Green Bay from the administrators of Rambler Metals for A$65 million that same year.
The deal included A$250 million of infrastructure, including a 500,000t per annum processing facility.
“With an 80 million tonne resource, it would take 160 years to actually put that through the mill,” Cooke said.
“[Rambler] were previously producing about 6000 tonnes of copper a year, and that is totally uninvestable.
“What we’re doing is resetting it. We’re rebuilding the infrastructure. We’re rebuilding the haulage networks of the mine to be a much larger scale, to suit the orebody.”
FireFly already has environmental approval for a 1.8Mt per annum operation.
The company raised A$149 million in late 2025 and has A$251 million in cash.
“We’re very fortunate that myself and the site team can get on to developing this project without having to worry about where the money’s coming from, because we are very well-funded at the moment,” Cooke said.
“No offtake, no streams, no debt, ASX and TSX-listed and a very strong institutional register to have groups like BlackRock as our major shareholder is a big tick of approval for where we are.”
Earlier this year, FireFly announced the divestment of its 70% stake in the high-grade Pickle Crow gold asset in Ontario to its sister company Bellavista Resources (ASX: BVR) for A$86.1 million in scrip.
Bellavista is led by Glenn Jardine and Peter Canterbury, who previously ran De Grey Mining up until its A$6 billion acquisition by Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) last year.
“We love the Pickle Crow project, and it’s great to see it go into some great hands with the former De Grey mining crew,” Cooke said.
“The reality is we just did not have the bandwidth to give Pickle Crow the justice that it deserves, and it’s a real win for our shareholders to get an in-specie distribution, so they’ll get shares in Bellavista and be exposed to that very exciting story moving forward.”