'Giant Deposits Don't Hide Very Well': Sterling Metals CEO on Scaling the Soo Copper Discovery

0:14In September 2025, Sterling Metals MEP Hest Hall hit 265 meters of 1.05 % copper equivalent. Going into 2026, the company announced a 20 ,000 meter program to establish the footprint and grade of that discovery. Ten months later, what has the company learned? Matt Wilson is CEO. Matt, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. Thanks, Michael. Very happy to be here. So, Matt, the project is in Ontario near Sault Ste. Marie. We do want to get to MEPS because you have been doing a lot of work. But let's step back first to situate where the project is, what's the infrastructure and what trends are you on? Yeah, so this project is in northern Ontario.

0:59It's about an hour north of Sault Ste. Marie, a city of about 100 ,000 people, famous for its steel production over the last 100 plus years. It's on the shores of Lake Superior and it's associated with the Mid-Continent Rift, which is a big crack in the earth that runs around Lake Superior and other places. but that is responsible for about 40 million tons of contained copper. And so what's fun about this project is that you get this big crack that has a lot of copper in it, and you get to be an hour north of Sault Ste. Marie in this wonderful place of northern Ontario, which is an amazing mining area, hundreds of years of history of mining, put together for a giant porphyry copper project that you usually would only find up in the mountains.

1:44So we have this lovely place to work. We're 20 kilometers from a rail line. We're 20 minutes off of the Trans-Canada Highway. Lots of power, lots of water and a skilled workforce. So, yeah, it's a good place to be situated looking for big copper. Tell us about the MEPs and why it was significant, why you consider it significant. I think that the discovery itself, in a vacuum, if you looked at just the hole and you saw what was in that hole, so you get this 260 meters of just over a percent equivalent. You also have this 70 meter zone of over 3 % equivalent that has this incredible strength of copper mineralization where you get this replacement boronite.

2:27And boronite, for those who are listening, is 64 % copper and very purple. Whereas the general thing that you usually see on a lot of copper projects is calphipirate, which is the yellow looking metal. That's 33 % copper. And really just the point of that is just that it just kind of signifies you have a very strong system. You have this copper upgrading that happens. And so that hole had three different kinds of copper in it, covalite included, which is even higher grade. And so you get this replacement of this Ontario rock with just massive copper sulfides. And then you get this mineable bulk tonnage scenario around it where you get 0.3, 0.4 that kind of runs within these rocks.

3:06And so, you know, if you drill this anywhere in a porphyry district, people would get pretty excited about it. And you'd assume that you were in this giant porphyry system because it's associated with these porphyry rocks. And the only reason that matters is because 80 % of the world's copper is produced from porphyry. So it just speaks to scale and viability. And so the hole itself is very important, looking at the strength of copper, the broad scope of mineralization. But really looking at a hole in a vacuum is never really a good idea. And so when you take the context of the actual project, which is 30 kilometer wide copper system, bookended by two old copper mines, one being a small epithermal mine, about a million tons for a percent and a half copper was mined.

3:49And then the other being one of the assets that kind of got tech going in the 60s and 70s, it was this four breccia pipes, which is a copper porphyry type deposit. And they mined almost 7 million tons and almost 3 % copper in 60s and 70s. And that's a span of 30 kilometers. And our porphyry discovery is literally right in the middle, almost if you put a dot in the middle of the project, that's where it is. And so you get these multiple centers, these multiple areas of mineralization, two of which were mines, one of which we discovered here. So the context of this is a giant copper mineral system with a discovery hole in the middle that speaks to both the quality of the mineralization, this boronite and the grade, and then the scale of it all being like this strong copper system that makes its way across the 30 kilometers, finding its way into where we drilled.

4:38And our Our chief geologist, Neil O 'Brien, was the senior VP of exploration at Lundeen Mining from 2003 to 18. And in 2009, he helped put a small company together called NGEX. And NGEX at the time was a$30 million market cap and owned a district that was also about 30 kilometers called the Vicuna District that no one really knew about at the time or had written off. and from that is about$37 billion of value later. You now have Philo and NGX Lunawasi. You have Lundin Mining with the Jose Maria deposit and so has spent time seeing these things grow from the beginning to the end and seeing all this value creation.

5:20And he likes to say that giant deposits don't hide very well. And so in this case, you have this gargantuan mineral system and then two mines and then our discovery. And so either it's really big or we're really lucky is what he likes to say. And so it's in the context of that. That's why we were so excited about it. Uh, so we're 10 months in right now, Matt, and then, you know, off of that MEPs, you did announce that drill program. So, you know, what's the evolution of what you've discovered right now? What are you looking at in terms of regional scale and continuity? Well, we, we, we drilled that hole.

5:56It was our sixth hole in the project. and so from that we got very excited and then drilled a bunch of different angles and different versions trying to figure out where it went a lot of this is trying to figure out where the source of it is right because what we're finding is not the source this is not the heart of this system and so trying to trace whatever the rock unit is that you're trying to follow right if you think of it like fingers into a hand we were thinking that the fingers led to the hand vertically. And so a lot of our efforts have been trying to figure out the vertical extent and where it goes.

6:34And there's this interesting horizontal layer to it now. And so really the drilling to date has been going through the Ontario forest. It's not like a flatline plain. So you got to drill from different places. And really it's just trying to put together what happened there. And so 30 ,000 meters later, you kind of are starting to see, or you will start to see, especially with the news that's coming out, the lateral extent of this project, the depth extension, our recent press release took the down to about 400 meters vertically of continuous mineralization. we probably have about 500 meters of strike and about 400 meters of width at the moment.

7:12And we balance that with some regional exploration, trying to figure out what's going on within what we have currently known as a nine kilometer corridor, trying to understand the rock type. And so what you'll start to see as news comes out, you're going to see the lateral extent of this project kind of get built out. And then we're going to step into different areas and different rocks trying to learn. We've only been here for about a year and a half. We actually They haven't even been drilling for a year and a half. And so the meterage, it's interesting because in most copper stories, the meterage would speak to years of projects or multiple rigs.

7:45We have had one rig going. We took a break December, January, February. And one of the things that's great about this project is you can drill 150 to 200 meters every 24 hours with one rig at$200 Canadian a meter with assays included. So the advantages here is from a cost perspective make this very different from most projects because you can drill year round and at that cost. So we get to take some shots here and there and see what's going on in different places. And so I think that for the most part, the core zone of this MEPS discovery, building it out laterally and at depth is what we have spent a lot of time on.

8:19And then mixed in with, you know, five, six thousand meters here and there with kind of wildcat drilling, understanding different rocks and different formations. Where are you right now in terms of getting back your assays right now? We're actually we're going to start to have we finally caught up. to the labs. And they've actually been great this year relative to past years. But I'm sure it will slow down as all the summer drilling starts coming in from the rest of the companies. But at the moment, we're going to start to have assays that start coming out. We put news out last week that had this 350 meters of 0.5 with these two larger areas.

8:57I think we had nine of five or something in the middle. and then so we should have news on a pretty continuous basis that builds out you know every couple weeks that starts to build out the lateral extent find new things and now that we have kind of caught up you know you have this like two months or so lag usually so we started drilling in February and you know my past days might have got to the lab end of March and then you kind of have this lag and then you start putting news out over and over and so that's kind of how we're going now and so we're getting much more into the core of the deposit and the lateral extent extension at the expansion um and so a lot of the news that you're going to see coming up will will be this horizontal horizontal this lateral continuity of maps and seeing how it how it steps out and the size that it can bring to the to uh to the area now in your news releases you're also talking about near surface as well what were you finding there so what's wonderful about this project is that so you're in the forest if you walk in the woods it's very similar to just walking in the woods anywhere.

9:59And oftentimes you have a hard time finding copper at surface or any mineral at surface because there's cover, there's forest floor, there's glacial till, there's soil, whatever, right? What's great here is that there's a fair bit of outcrop. And the way that we discovered our first hole was actually this, basically the side of a cave face is just splattered with four different kinds of copper and these flatline, wonderful high-grade molly veins. And so you get to see six meter wide cave face of just all this purple boronite that's been preserved and calcol pyrite and different veining types. And so being able to find that on the project is obviously a very good advantage for figuring out where to go.

10:39And so our discovery hole came from looking at that and being like, well, let's drill close to that. And so we have these areas of mineralization. In this eight kilometer corridor, we have hundreds of samples of copper across it. You have the best continuity of copper about three kilometers away from where we are right now. Doesn't mean that that's where the center of this all is, but lots of copper at surface that we're following up on. And it's really just about finding where in this project, it's very much about finding where does the fluid flow trap, right? I guess in any project, that's the case, but where does the copper trap and how does it best trap?

11:16Because while I do say that this is very much a porphyry system and compare it that way, it's still not a very known porphyry system. It's a RIF related, it's a different version of the geology. And so figuring out the ins and outs of it all, the nuances, you're not next door to a giant porphyry mine. So it's kind of playing with that. But luckily, we have a lot of copper on surface and a good reaction to geophysics to kind of guide us there in terms of where we're drilling. Anything, any historical data out of those two copper mines that were on your project? Yeah, I mean, a fair bit. Tech drilled a historic resource up in the Northeast.

11:54I think they drilled 300 million tons of 0.15 copper or something looking for more of these breached pipes. The interesting saying usually in porphyry exploration is go to where the majors drilled and then just drill deeper now. And so what they were mining, there's reports of 20 % copper. There's been historical papers on this dating back to the 70s. So lots of fun research here. Two of the great porphyry experts of the world actually came up in 2019 and wrote a paper on where we are dating another porphyry that was here, as well as that old mine. And then that was the association that we did to the Mid-Continent Rift.

12:35So the reason we're so sure that this is related to that is because you have these porphyry experts who have come up and dated all the mineralization. So that data came to us with the project, which is really great. Lots of historical data on drilling. Phelps Dodge was up here in the 60s looking for Mali. And what's really fun, and I don't get too caught up on it, but it is fun, is that right across the lake is the Duluth copper nickel PGE complex. And it's recently pointed out to me that Duluth is one of the largest undeveloped copper projects in the world. It's 4.6 billion tons of 0.6 % copper and our rocks are the exact same age, exact same copper event that happened in Duluth to produce that is what we have at Sioux in a 30 kilometer copper system with two old mines in this kind of discovery goal.

13:22So I think that the historical data plays very well for like, man, that was great. They were recovering very high grades of copper. I think they're recovering 92 % copper and 97 % silver. There's tungsten everywhere. There's cobalt. It's a really big mineral system. And the data, when you put that together with the scale of what's across the lake, like when you start thinking about, oh man, we could really have the right rocks, because you have these porphyry rocks. So you don't have issues with recoveries. You don't have issues with upgrading of the copper because the copper here is very strong, unlike some of the areas in Duluth.

13:55So I think that the data that we see from that is great for targeting, but even better for understanding the scale of what we're going after. That's a giant, right? 5 billion tons of 0.6 is a monster. And so that's the whole area there. And I mean, 30 kilometers is the size of a camp. I mean, the best Arizona porphyry camps are 30 kilometers. And so three, four mines, that's what usually is in there. And so I think that the data and the tri-bag mine, which is that old tech mine, we're still compilating it all. We have a team of five or six that's been together for five years. We're very close and have moved through a couple different projects.

14:33But we're compiling more of that data now because I think that that's going to be an area of focus for us going forward. But really, I've spent most of our time on this MEPS discovery because we think that it's going to be something very special, especially given where it is. And in a full circle way back to where we are, you know, we're 20 kilometers from this rail line, which goes right into the deep water port of Seuss-A-Bury. We're 20 minutes from a highway where everyone can drive the project. We bought the six and a half acre horse ranch about 20 minutes south of the project and converted it to a giant core storage facility where we also sleep and also have a new partnership with Geologic AI, who's this wonderful core scanning technology.

15:12that is able to give you not just fancy data, like spectral analysis of different light waves, but also XRF data, which is 30 elements that you get back from your assays. So instead of spending two months waiting for assays, we're going to have 24 to 72-hour feedback on what's in the rock, which will let us be more efficient exploration, less dollars spent, less holes in the ground, and ideally more discoveries faster. So I think that tying a bulk tonnage project from surface, as you pointed out, with a very large footprint, it gets really exciting for us because we can do it. And when you bring up Tribeca, that's going to be a whole other area of massive exploration as we push this forward.

15:59Now in June, you announced the QCX acquisition that grew your land 40%. Can you talk about the timing, why that was a good time to make the deal? yeah for sure i think that it's interesting there's copper so that tribeg mine in the northeast there there's four bretcher pipes and then in the land that qcx has there's another one there's porphyry outcrop and then a really fun mag signature um it's very hard to get to their land it's extremely difficult to find your way up there um and there's always a balancing act like when do you buy something when you merge um and do you wait until you're really big and And then they're much bigger.

16:38Or do you do it now? And in my other hat, I run a fund out of a company called Earth Labs. And we run$80 million that only invest in venture mining. And there's the area play game, right? You play lots of people play that and you have something like Magotez, right? Which is right next to Philo, right? And it's now$400 million, but was 30. So it's one of those things that, yeah, the relative value... Does the relative value really change that much? So in my opinion, I thought it was like, if a good relationship and something that I wanted to do right away, I'd like to own that land. I'd like to be able to explore it as soon as possible.

17:18And so it was one of those things where, yeah, sterling is not worth that much at the moment, but neither is QCX. So in a relative dilution perspective, will it be that different? And I think that we were both just like, this will work way better together. So that was the idea of the timing. Ontario and Ottawa have been really vocal in terms of their support for critical minerals, copper projects. You know, there was the big announcement just regarding Mark Selby's Canada Nickel recently. You know, given your status, given where you're at right now, are you seeing anything concrete right now in terms of permitting funding that's happening in terms of getting better service for what you guys are trying to do?

18:00We've got some pretty good focus groups with Ontario Critical Metals. They're really putting a push into it. Obviously, there's a lot of focus on the Ring of Fire. You see ads for it every day. I think that for me, there's so many early stage companies and it's hard to distinguish, even as a venture investor, it's hard to distinguish which ones are really pushing forward and which aren't. I think that at the end of this drill program, but not at the end of this drill program, but by the end of September, October, I think that we're going to have a pretty good idea of what the core of this area can be volumetrically through tonnage and just surface expression and all those things that it won't be resource numbers or a PEA on economics, but like you're going to start to see a lot of continuous copper put together in a bulk area.

18:44I think that the government for the most part will want to see something like that. They usually just want to, they want to see a resource first. I know that Mark has done a great job of putting resources together and numbers together as soon as possible. And the government can then at least bank that, right? For us, it's still an exploration thing. You're still living drill hole to drill hole. I'm hoping very much that that is not the case soon. And so it's been good feedback loop. You know, the Ontario government program that gives grants gave us 225 grand, which is great. And I think that as we continue to build this out, there will be a lot more constructive conversations.

19:17The city of Sault Ste. Marie has been absolutely wonderful, whether it's from the Business Development Office, the Mayor's Office, or the Port Authority, I think that they're very aware of what we are doing. And the government is focused very much on Algoma Steel and trying to make sure that that works as a lot of the city is based on Algoma Steel. So having another large industry here where, you know, not just the copper mine, but having a large source of copper, like, what can you do with that? I think that it's always a big point for me where, you know, Canada consumes about 300 ,000 tons of copper a year.

19:51And we have two smelters in Quebec that are owned by Glencore. And it would be great with the vast resources of copper that we have for the most important critical metal that you need. Every second of the day that you have a light on, you're needing in copper. Every AI conversation that you have, you need so much copper. The Death Star that Elon is going to build, you're going to need a lot of copper. I think that you're going to have a lot of demand for this. And Canada has the opportunity to really take a stand and both produce a lot of copper and concentrate, but then maybe even just find, make and use its own copper at home.

20:26And I think that the opportunity that presents itself at Sterling is such that you could drive that forward because you have not just a large copper system, but something that can be done in this cycle around the Sioux, which is already an area that has looked into refining capacity for things in the rain and fire. So the advantages of where we are in the world and the timing of this cannot be overstated enough. I think that that is what makes this discovery so significant is where it is. And then, of course, the quality of the geology. Lastly, Matt, so we know what's going to be left in terms of this drill program that you announced back in 2025.

21:05What's going to be the milestones you're looking ahead for the next 12 months? I'm hoping that we never stop drilling again. Maybe we'll break at Christmas. but but um my team just cringes but um but there's there's a big push here and i i mentioned the cycle right i think that that there's the opportunity is right now you have this you know everyone knows the argument of copper is under invested and undersupplied and all this stuff right and that ai needs all of this metal and that can then needs metal and i think that you know So the opportunity for us is to move as quickly as possible here to bring this from concept to reality.

21:52And for reality, you need economic studies, you need resources, you need network, you need water studies. And we're doing all of these things as quickly as possible. So we've already engaged in water studies, which you need for economics. We've already engaged in conversations with community and with First Nations, just talking about what we're doing here and engaging agreements to push this forward. So I think that the next 12 months, what I'm hoping is that you're getting into a realm where you can get economics attached to this. And when you drill 200 meters a day with one rig, you can do a lot very fast.

22:24And when you can drill in the winter, you can do a lot very fast. So the thought for me is that within 12 months, you're going to have a lot on the table that shows that this could be something that's viable now, not something that's viable in two cycles down the road. Matt, thanks for speaking with Mining Stock Daily. Michael, thanks a lot for having me anytime.