Rio Tinto Canada had entered a six-year option agreement to earn up to 80 per cent of Forum Energy Metals’ Janice Lake copper project by spending up to $C30 million ($31.15 million) on exploration.

Forum reported that a rotary air blast drill had arrived on the site and was searching historic and newly mapped regional copper showings, as well as recently developed geophysical targets buried by overburden.

It is expected that the targets will determine the extent of the copper-silver mineralisation at Janice Lake.

Forum anticipates that rotary air blast drilling will help develop a diamond drill program that is scheduled for next year.

“RAB (rotary air blast) drilling is a quick, cost-effective and efficient method of testing the numerous showings on the project that have not had any historic drilling,” Forum stated in a media release.

The Janice Lake project has a copper/silver mineralisation that extends from an outcrop of around eight kilometres, and in drillholes along the strike of the Janice Lake basin.

Construction of the project’s nearby Burbidge Lake camp is almost complete, which will be used for Jansen Lake’s 2021 exploration program.

Rio Tinto Canada completed a 4318 line kilometre high resolution magnetic survey across the entire Janice Lake and drilled 21 holes at the project in 2019.