Projects Overview
Arctic Minerals has two projects located in Sweden, one of Europe’s major mining economies. The country has a long mining history and is home to one of Europe’s largest copper producers (Boliden), with proximity to end markets.
Sweden has extensive infrastructure network (roads, rail, ports, air, communications) and hydro and nuclear base load power.
The country ranks in the Top 20 mining jurisdictions globally, with the government is supportive of mining, low taxes (20.6% corporate tax rate) and royalties (0.2%). The government has a stated ambition to be a leader in the Green Industrial Revolution with an acceptance that mining is required to provide critical metals.
In terms of exploration potential, Sweden has massive metal endowment and little to no modern exploration has been undertaken outside of known deposits. Arctic Minerals’ first-class team of explorers and developers have extensive operating experience and recent success in Sweden.
Hennes Bay Project
The Company’s 100% owned Hennes Bay Project, comprising eleven granted exploration permits covering approximately 322km2 (with a further 80km2 under application), is located in the province of Dalsland, southwest Sweden (Figure 1 and Figure 3).
The Project is located in a largely unexplored part of the Grenville Orogeny – mountain building system which gave rise to world class sediment-hosted copper deposits including Kamoa-Kakula and Tenke-Fungurumi (Democratic Republic of Congo) and White Pine (USA) (Figure 2).
Hennes Bay Mineral Resource Estimate
Arctic Minerals AB announced the maiden JORC compliant Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) for its 100% owned Hennes Bay copper-silver project in March 2025.
The maiden MRE for Hennes Bay is 55.39Mt at 1.0% CuEq (0.8% Cu & 20.8g/t Ag) for a total 543,000t CuEq contained metal (above a 0.8% CuEq cut-off). The total metal content comprises 447kt of copper and 36.99Moz of silver.
The Company engaged Cube Consulting, a highly regarded Australian independent consulting firm, to prepare and report the maiden MRE for Hennes Bay in accordance with the JORC Code (2012).
The MRE is based solely on the Dingelvik prospect where 62 drill holes for 8,822m of drilling were completed by 1984 by SGAB. Arctic Minerals has completed detailing relogging and reassaying of the drill core, and resurveying of drill hole collars, for a representative subset of historical drill holes to demonstrate the veracity of the historical data.
Table 1. Hennes Bay Maiden JORC Compliant Mineral Resource Estimate and cutoff grade sensitivity
Growth Potential
Whilst the release of a maiden MRE for Hennes Bay is a significant milestone, the Project has immense resource growth and exploration upside potential and the Company believes the opportunity to significantly expand on the MRE in the near to medium term is substantial.
The maiden MRE is based solely on the Dingelvik prospect, where mineralisation remains open in all directions. Extensive zones of mineralisation defined by historical drilling at several other prospects, namely Asselbyn, Henneviken, Baldersnäs, Åsnebo and Härserud Norra, have not been included in the maiden MRE. With limited further drilling, these prospects have the potential to be upgraded to the Inferred Resource category and added to the Hennes Bay MRE (Figure 4).
The zones of mineralisation drilled at prospects, located in the northern portion of the Company extensive ground holding at Hennes Bay, are interpreted to represent the distal part of a sediment-hosted stratiform copper mineral system (“SSC”).
SSC mineral systems favor the formation of very large deposits and mineral districts with consistent mineralisation (Figure 5 and Figure 6), represent the most important source of copper produced in the world after porphyry copper deposits, and account for 20-25% of the global production and reserves.
Within Arctic Minerals’ tenement package at Hennes Bay, which covers 322km2 (and a further 80km2 under application), less than 5% of the aerially extensive sediment-hosted stratiform copper target horizon has been drill tested to date (Figure 5).
As mentioned above, the mineralisation at Dingelvik and the other known prospects is interpreted to represent the distal part of a SSC mineral system. This interpretation is due to the uniform mineralisation grades observed over a large area, together with preliminary geological reconstruction of the original rift basin and the setting of the known mineralisation within this framework. Identifying the proximal parts of the SSC mineral system is an exploration priority given the potential for these target areas to host higher grade mineralisation (Figure 5 and Figure 6).
Surface outcrops of the same mineralised contact have been mapped and sampled (grab sample results including 1.78% Cu & 40 g/t Ag) up to 17km from the MRE further highlighting the scale potential of the Project (Figure 7).
In the Company’s view, the detailed relogging and reassaying of historical core, extensive fieldwork, and reprocessing of available geophysical data conducted over the past two years has confirmed the potential for substantial resource growth and new discoveries through further targeted drilling at Hennes Bay.
Forward Work Plan
The major milestone of delivering the maiden MRE for Hennes Bay positions it as one of the fastest growing, near surface copper and silver projects with genuine scale and substantial exploration upside in Europe.
Arctic Minerals’ focus is to build on this very solid foundation and systematically demonstrate the full potential and value of Hennes Bay through targeted work programs and drilling.
The planned work program comprises five initial workstreams over the next two years:
- Stakeholder engagement
- Environmental, Heritage and Cultural Investigations
- Desktop and fieldwork to determine the current baseline status of the Flora and Fauna, Historical and Cultural sites within the potentially affected areas
- Resource Expansion:
- Drill testing of the peripheries of the Dingelvik prospect
- Infill and extension drilling at the other five prospects to allow these known zones of mineralisation to be upgraded to Inferred Resource category and added to the MRE
- Testing of the Exploration Model Through the Application of Modern Geophysics and Discovery Drilling:
- Additional field mapping and geophysical surveys using modern techniques
- Generation of regional targets and regional exploration drilling to discover higher grade zones of mineralisation in the proximal parts of the SSC mineral system
- Project Development:
- Detailed mine design and scheduling
- Preliminary metallurgical testwork, processing plant and TSF location(s)
- Preliminary economic assessment (“PEA”) to determine potential for a modern mine, noting that relatively large tonnage, high-grades, and predictable ore body geometry make SSC deposits very attractive for large scale mining operations
Swan Lake Project
The Swan Lake Project, comprising two granted exploration permits covering approximately 218km2, is located in the Southern Norrbotten region in northern Sweden (Figure 7).
Northern Sweden has a well-established mining industry, with multiple base and precious metal mines currently operating in the Northern Norrbotten and Skellefte Field ore districts. The Swan Lake project is located between these two historic ore districts, 20km northwest of the emerging industrial town of Boden.
Access to the project is excellent through a network of sealed and well-maintained forest roads. Notably, the ore train connecting the mining operations in Kiruna and Gällivare with all-year port facilities in the coastal city of Luleå runs through the centre of the Project area.
The tenements form part of an earn-in agreement (“EIA”) between the Company and Boden Prospektering AB (“Boden”). The Company earnt an initial 51% interest in 2023 and has the right to earn up to 80% by spending a total of A$800,000 on the tenements. Pursuant to the EIA, the Company is responsible for sole funding all joint venture activities on the tenements up to completion of a feasibility study.
The Project is located within the Proterozoic Norrbotten volcanic belt surrounded by granitic intrusions that hosts the giant Aitik and Laver porphyry copper-gold deposits owned by Boliden (Figure 9). The Aitik mine, which has been in operation since 1968, is one of Europe’s largest copper producers.
Recent research has shown that much of the Svecofennian age mineralisation in both ore districts appears to be controlled by deep, crustal-scale deformation zones that dissect large parts of northern Scandinavia. While historic mining and exploration activities to date have centred around the known ore districts, the continuation of these structures outside the known mining areas remains largely unexplored.
On a local scale, the Project is characterised by a large-scale alteration system that has been delineated over tens of square kilometres and contains a historic occurrence of Cu-Au-Ag-Mo mineralisation, as well as high-grade boulders of similar metal assemblage. A dumortierite-quartzite occurrence, previously drilled and trial mined to investigate its potential use as ornamental or gemstone, is now interpreted to represent the upper parts of a porphyry-epithermal system, directly linked to stockwork Cu-Au-Ag-Mo mineralisation (Figure 10). Recent fieldwork has uncovered polyphase quartz sulphide stockwork veining in the area.
Based on the interpretation of geological mapping, rock-chip and soil sampling and ground geophysical surveys completed by the JV partners, the Project area is considered highly prospective for epithermal altered lithocap gold-silver and porphyry copper-gold style mineralisation.
Planned work programs at Swan Lake through until the end of 2025 includes field mapping, extension of soil sampling coverage, drone magnetics, and target prioritisation for electromagnetic (“EM”) and induced polarization (“IP”) geophysical surveys.
These work programs will substantially enhance the exploration database, leading to the generation of initial priority drill targets to be tested in 2026.
