Sunshine Silver Mining & Refining has expanded its consolidated mineral rights in Idaho’s Silver Valley by about 14,100 acres, a 60% increase to roughly 38,000 acres, making it the largest mineral rights holder in the district. The company is launching a multi-year, 45,000-metre surface drilling campaign starting Q4, initially targeting East Sunshine (along strike from the Sunshine mine), Rock Creek and Pine Creek. Much of the enlarged land package has seen limited modern exploration, signalling significant upside for additional deposits beyond the existing Sunshine mine.

Water licence renewal and a land use permit for Fortune Minerals’ NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project in the Northwest Territories have been approved, setting binding conditions for mine construction, operation, and closure security. The development combines an open pit and underground mine plus concentrator linked by an approved access road to the territorial highway, with concentrates shipped to a dedicated hydrometallurgical plant in Alberta. NICO hosts about 12% of known global bismuth reserves and 1.1 million in-situ ounces of gold, targeting domestic output of cobalt sulphate, bismuth ingots and copper cement.

Copper climbed 3.3% intraday to $6.8410/lb on Comex and $14,710.50/t on the LME as visible stocks tightened, with LME on-warrant inventory down to 133,725 t and cash copper flipping from an $86/t discount to a $26/t backwardation in a week. Comex warehouses now hold 696,204 t, about 69% of exchange-monitored copper, but storage at the Port of New Orleans is near capacity even as another 100,000 t from Africa and South America is due by October. Supply disruptions at Grasberg and Kamoa-Kakula have removed roughly 600,000 t from 2026 mine output, supporting prices less than 2% below record highs.